


Ten Days

by Fanforlife84



Category: Narcos (TV)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Brief mentions of masturbation, Domestic Javi, Dry Humping, F/M, Major Character Injury, Medical Inaccuracies, Mutually Unrequited, Slow Burn, Swearing, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:08:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 25,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29272989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fanforlife84/pseuds/Fanforlife84
Summary: Javier is shot and refuses to take his antibiotic while recuperating.  You get creative and make him a deal that ensures he will take his medicine everyday: one kiss for one pill.  It's gonna be a long 10 days.
Relationships: Javier Peña/Reader
Comments: 47
Kudos: 157





	1. Day One

**Author's Note:**

> Yet again, absolutely no medical accuracy except from what I found on the internet! =-0). Things get steamier in later chapters, thus the rating.
> 
> Thanks to yespolkadot_kitty for getting me started, kind words and advice!
> 
> Be well!

***

“God dammit!…...Fucking-….God damn mother fuckers!...” 

You roll your eyes as you listen to the continued litany of swearing coming from the direction of the living room.  _ Men can be such babies sometimes, _ you think as you put the finishing touches on the sandwich you’d plated along with a bowl of soup. Suddenly the litany of mixed English and Spanish swear words is broken by a sharp, hissing intake of breath and you jerk your head in the direction of the adjoining room. 

“Peña?” You call out. “What happened?” You didn’t get an answer until you enter the living room with the plate of food, a glass of water and a small bottle of pills. The DEA agent lie curled in on himself, half-on, half-off his leather couch. His elbows are clenched tightly into his sides, his face pale, eyes scrunched shut and teeth gritted in pain. Clearly your bull-headed partner had not heeded your instructions to stay still and not try to move on his own.  _ Such babies….and soooo stubborn! _ You think to yourself as you shake your head, placing the items in your hands on the coffee table. Reaching out to grasp his shoulders to help him back into a more comfortable position, you do your best to not say the words rushing through your brain. 

“What did I tell you? What the hell do you think you’re doing? I told you you’re going to…” Before you can continue, his eyes snap open and he spears you with them; they’re filled with malice and anger and frustration. 

He cuts you off, spitting his words in your direction. “I could ask you the same fuckin’ question, honey,” Javi bites off. 

Your own temper flares now in response to his outburst, and you jab your balled fists into your hips, staring down at the grown man writhing in pain. “Fuck you, Peña! Don’t be such an asshole, I’m only trying to help.”

“I don’t need your fuckin’ help...what I need is for you to leave me the fuck alone.” he grits out, clenching his elbows tighter into his side.

“God you are acting like SUCH a child right now, Peña.” You cross your arms, but still refuse to follow his direction and leave. For a moment, the dark eyes that were flashing anger flickered to confusion, filled with a question, indignation. But only for a moment. His eyebrows pull impossibly low into a harsh glare and the dangerous angry glint returns to his eyes. An incredulous undertone seeps into his voice.

“I...was...fucking….shot!” he hisses each word quietly, venomously, spitting each syllable as though he wishes it would send you further away from him . You don’t move, but merely purse your lips, raise an eyebrow, and shrug. 

“Join the club.” You say. “It was a clean shot, Peña, it went right through you...you’ll be fine in a few weeks. Although…” you gesture towards his clenched middle, “Not if you keep being an idiot and trying to do stuff on your own. You’ll tear your stitches.” 

Javier lets out a huff of breath and grunts as he tries to right himself back flat onto the sofa, trying unsuccessfully to swing his legs back onto the couch without utilizing any of the muscles or tendons in his midsection and core so close to his injury. You watch him struggle for a moment, waiting. Finally, he lets out a resigned sigh that does a decent impression of a growl and stills, tilting his head towards you, but refusing to meet your eyes. 

You wait a moment longer and then shake your head at him again, grasping his ankles and tossing them perhaps not as gently as you could have back up onto the sofa. The quick motion causes him to bite back a pained moan in the back of his throat behind clenched jaw, lips pressing together into two thin lines, eyes squeezed shut once again. After a moment, he lets out a relieved breath through his nose, eyes opening wide for a moment then blinking rapidly a few times. He glances over at you as you strong-arm the heavy wooden coffee table over closer towards the couch and rearrange the items on the edge within his reach: plate of food, glass, pill bottle, television remote, cordless phone, cigarettes and ashtray, sidearm.  _ All the essentials _ you think to yourself, smirking while you watch from beneath your eyelashes as he surveys the items petulantly, assessing to make sure that he wasn’t actually in any prolonged pain. You glance at the right side of his blue button down and notice no traces of seeping blood spots on the garment anywhere along his torso. You straighten, satisfied that the stubborn man hasn't pulled his stitches open.

“OK.” You puff. “That ought to be good for you for a while. Try to get some sleep if you can...I’ll check back in with you in a few hours.” You snatch his keys off the end table next to the couch and put them in your pocket. You look back at him, eyebrows raised. “Anything else I can get you before I leave, Princess?” He rolls his eyes and doesn’t answer, just gives you a sulky look before moving his gaze to stare at the ceiling. You nod once, receiving the message loud and clear. “Ok then.” You spin around and head towards the door, calling over your shoulder, “Don’t forget to take your antibiotic.”

You chose to ignore the mumbled “go to hell” you hear muttered after you.

\-------

Six and a half hours laters, you haul your exhausted body through the heavy late night darkness back into your building. The last thing you want is to stop by Peña’s apartment and put up with his crap after the craziness of the day, but as you climb the stairs to his floor, you wonder if you are maybe being a little too harsh on the man...then you shake that thought off.  _ Fuck that!  _ You think.  _ I’ve been shot three times and I’ve never been rude to someone when they’ve tried to help me out. He’s just being a dick. _

You rummaged in your pocket and fish out his keys. You enter the dark apartment, calling his name softly, announcing your entrance. You receive no response and follow the muted flashing light of the TV illuminating the living room. He’s still stretched out on the couch, one arm flung up above and behind his head, face turned towards the TV screen, eyes closed. Judging by his breathing pattern you’d bet a pack of cigarettes that he’s only pretending to be asleep, hoping you’ll just leave him alone.  _ Fine with me. _ You collect the cleaned plate and empty glass, carrying both to the kitchen and refilling them before returning them to their place on the table in front of him without a word. 

Several top buttons on his shirt are undone; you can see the edges of the tape and bandages from his injury peeking out along the edge. Leaning over him carefully, you lightly move his loosened shirt aside to glance at his bandages, checking more closely for any stains. Seeing nothing, you glance up at his face and see that his eyes are open now. They bore into you out of the corners of his eyes, but his head stays turned towards the flashing screen across the room. Your own gaze snags on his dark one and almost instantaneously, you can feel every atom charge and spark in the room. You are suddenly very aware of how close you are to him and you straighten. You inquire if he needs help getting to the bathroom or if he wants to move to his room and he shakes his head in response to both. You clear your throat softly and step away from him, considering the items on the coffee table. 

Your gaze settles on the pill bottle and you snatch it up. Opening the small orange container you dump the contents into the palm of your hand and quickly count the oblong yellow capsules.  _ Goddamnit! _ You think to yourself and shoot the man on the couch a sharp glare. He meets your eyes with his own sideways gaze, then very intentionally sweeps his eyes back towards the TV.

“You need to take your antibiotic, Peña.” Nothing. You sigh heavily. “Stop being such a baby and take your damn pill! I’m tired, I need a shower and I don’t feel like dealing with a fucking infant right now.” He turns his head, considering you for a moment, then quietly repeats his earlier reply regarding taking the antibiotic before turning back to the screen. How much trouble would you get in if you punched a fellow agent that had just been shot? You take a step forward menacingly. “Peña, I swear to fucking God-”

“Get out of my apartment!” He says quietly. “And take that shit with you.” He gives a small nod with his chin towards the pills in your hands. 

“What is your problem? It’s medicine, Peña, I’m not asking you to do a line of coke!” 

“I fuckin’ know what it is, I don’t-”

“This is fucking ridiculous!” You explode, shoving the pills back into the bottle and capping it before throwing it angrily towards his prone body, finding its mark in the center of his chest. “You might as well have asked those fucking sicarios to shoot you in the head instead if you’re not going to take care of yourself. I’m not hauling your ass back to the hospital when that gets infected and I’m sure as hell not going to deal with your sorry corpse when you die alone on your couch in this fucking apartment because you were too damn stubborn to swallow a God damn pill. Too God damn stubborn to let somebody help you just a little when you need it.” You’re panting now, enraged by your body’s own betrayal of you with that outburst. You can feel tears stinging behind your eyes and that only serves to make you more angry. 

Your brain knows he is acting this way because he’s in pain, because his adrenaline has worn off, because he’s trying not to think about what might have happened if the bullet had been one or two centimeters to the left. You’ve experienced this yourself. But your feelings are still hurt by his behavior. Your boss had given you explicit orders to see to it that your partner made a quick and full recovery. You were really just trying to do your job and didn’t need this prick treating you like shit! You take a deep breath into your belly, refusing to let your voice crack in front of this ungrateful son of a bitch. For a moment you consider just walking out and leaving him there. 

But you are not a quitter. You’ve never given up on anything in your life, especially when it comes to anything having to do with your career. He was stubborn...oh yes. But God damn it, so are you. You cross your arms in front of your chest and stare at him, thinking for a moment.

You ponder your relationship with this infuriating man over the past year and change. At first you had loathed him...and the only real interest he had in you initially had been about getting you into bed. When it quickly became clear that that was not going to happen, his interest in you had become non existent….until it wasn’t. Until you had proven yourself more competent, capable and intuitive than most every other person he worked with in the agency, save only for perhaps himself. A grudging professional respect had grown and, as the weeks turned to months, a genuine and friendly camaraderie had rooted itself between the two of you. You would dare at times to even refer to the two of you as friends. He still drove you crazy and enraged you daily and he had never really denied or hidden the fact that he still wanted you. There were times you would catch him looking at you with a sparkle in his eye that you knew meant trouble. Or, occasional moments like the one that had just happened: when the air between the two of you danced with static energy, charged with the unspoken desire that he (and sometimes you) would prefer to so easily give in to. But his professional respect for you outweighed that want and you had made it clear that you would not be sleeping with your partner, not ever. And, for the most part, he respected that declaration save for the occasional half-joking, half-serious suggestive comment. They annoyed you, but you also realized he made them in an effort to determine if you had changed your mind. You always shot him down and would make some remark that put him back in his place, but you never felt like he was pushing you, merely that he was checking to see if the needle had moved at all. Perhaps…

An idea drifted through your thoughts and planted itself in your head. You felt a tiny smirk play on your lips as you tilted your head slightly and looked at him thoughtfully. He saw the change in your composure, recognizing that you had hit on something. His eyes became guarded and you knew he was preparing himself to snarl back at whatever idea you had cooked up.

“What if I make you a deal…” You throw out slowly. His eyes narrow and he says nothing, waiting to hear more. You take a step towards him, snatching the pill bottle from off of his chest where it had landed. You gaze at the label, considering for another moment, then let your eyes slide up to meet his. You hold the bottle up. “What if…” you lick your lips, knowing how he reacts when you do that, then bring your bottom lip between your teeth for a moment, taking another half step closer to him. “What if I told you that I’ll kiss you if you take your pill.” His eyes grow wide and instantly flash with desire and interest, then almost as quickly snap back into a narrow question.

“You’re telling me that if I take my pill, you’ll make out with me?” The disbelief is evident in his voice. It sounded too good to be true.

“No.” You correct him firmly. “I said I would kiss you.” He studies you for several long moments, thinking over the proposal. Then, he carefully raises his head, adjusts the pillow slowly behind it to prop himself up a little more, and lets out a deep, contemplative sigh as he leans back again and makes a counter offer.

“Hmmmm. That’s an interesting deal. But I’d like to alter the wording a bit.” You raise your eyebrows slightly, indicating he should continue. The corners of his lips twitch upward. “One pill, one kiss.” Your eyes narrow at the broad unspecificity of his suggestion...and the potential for a much more complicated next 10 days. 

“Seriously, Peña? You would really hold me to something like this for 10 days because you’re too fucking childish to take medicine?” He shrugs.

“It was your idea.” He points out. You sigh, tilt your head back aghast and stare at the ceiling for a moment, considering. Finally, you snap your head back down.

“Fine. Deal. Whatever. One pill, one kiss.” He tries to suppress the smile growing beneath his mustache, but he doesn’t try too terribly hard. You move the last two steps to the couch, hand him the glass of water, and dump one of the pills into your hand, holding it out between your thumb and index finger, dropping it into his open palm. He sighs happily, smiling like a cat that just ate the canary, tosses it down his throat and chases it with several long gulps of water. He releases a small gasp as he moves the glass away from his lips and you raise your eyebrows and hitch your chin upwards, pointing towards your own mouth, indicating that he should let you see inside his own. He rolls his eyes but grins and opens his mouth wide, lifting his tongue and showing you that he had indeed swallowed it. You sigh, crack your neck in either direction, then drop to your knees next to the couch, bringing yourself nearly level with his face.

Before you can think too much or before he can try anything to prolong the type of kiss you have planned, you clasp his jaw on either side with both hands and bring your own lips down to meet his. You try to ignore how incredibly soft they are, and the smoky taste of his last cigarette ghosting up from them; how you can catch a faint whiff of his aftershave and how defined and strong his jawline feels beneath your fingers. You also choose to ignore how your heart begins to pound frantically and the jolt you feel between your legs at the soft sound he makes deep in his throat when your lips touch. You feel his hand come up to the side of your head and you allow it….for now. He gently twines the tips of his fingers into your hair and places his thumb on your cheek, stroking it once, twice, ever so softly and gently. You had planned a quick, fairly chaste kiss, but now that your lips were attached to his, the brief moment you had had in mind stretches into two longer moments, then into three, then another moment more...then suddenly it seems you’ve somehow forgotten how to count or determine any length of time at all. You feel like your stomach is being pulled through your shoes and your brain starts to cloud as the soft breath from his nose caresses your skin. You’ve never kissed anyone with a mustache before and you’re not sure how you feel about it….but then you decide that you're actually pretty sure you like the added sensation of the tiny hairs dancing across the sensitive skin of your upper lip. Your mind starts to unfog when you feel his mouth open slightly and the tip of his tongue slips out, cautiously exploring along the seam of your own mouth, trying unsuccessfully to request entrance…

...you get a huge level of satisfaction when you watch him chase you needily with his lips, eyes still closed when you pull away quickly, breaking the kiss before it becomes something more than a business transaction. He follows the wake of your kiss, searching the air blindly with his lips for the feeling of yours again, he stretches towards you, raising himself up.

“Ah, fuck!” He gasps suddenly, collapsing back onto the couch in pain as his injury forcefully pulls him back into his convalescence, leaving him unable to pursue you further. You chuckle and stand quickly, not feeling at all sorry for him one little bit. As he grunts in pain and protest, you head out the door, calling over your shoulder as you leave. 

“Don’t forget to eat that sandwich, you’re supposed to take the medicine with food.”

  
  
  



	2. Day Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Javi's in a better mood this morning...

***

The next morning was a Saturday, and you’re up early. You creep into your partner’s apartment, hoping to high heaven that he’s sleeping. Of course he’s wide awake though, and has clearly managed to peel himself off the couch on his own. You find him lolling in a kitchen chair, nursing what smells like a terrible cup of coffee. He smirks at you when you enter and see that he’s up and about on his own. You refuse to give him the satisfaction of knowing you’re already irritated with him. You simply ignore his presence and go about making him something for breakfast. The two of you share the space amiably, though you avoid his gaze as you fiddle with breakfast. You click on the radio at some point and the two of you listen to the chatter and news; occasionally you inquire about a word or phrase you don’t quite catch or understand. Your Spanish is good, but still has a few holes here and there. 

You’re pleased that he seems to be in a better mood this morning and you inquire as to how he slept. He shares that he had slept well, surprisingly, despite the fact that he spent the night on the couch. You don’t mention that the antibiotics may have very well made him sleepy; you don’t want to go anywhere near the deal you had made regarding those pills. But you appreciate the rest he has gotten nonetheless. A good night’s sleep could do wonders. Especially for the likes of Javier Peña when he was in his foulest moods.

By the time you slide eggs and toast onto a plate in front of him, your irritation with him has disappeared and he has you chuckling quietly about a colleague that neither of you cared for; the smarmy DEA agent in question had done nothing less than piss himself during the fateful shootout three days prior that had resulted in your partner’s injury. You both enjoyed a level of satisfaction that the blowhard had been taken down a notch or two, though you were sure he would spin some elaborate story explaining away his actions (or lack thereof), and succeed in keeping his lips firmly attached to the ambassador’s ass cheeks.

“Fuck, he drives me crazy!” Javier sighs out as he pushes his empty plate away, carefully stretching his arms over his head, taking care not to pull too much and separate his stitches. He winces a little and his shirt pulls up above his stomach, revealing the bottom part of his bandages. 

“Peña! What the fuck?” You say, reaching across the space separating your chair from his and lifting his shirt up higher. Your eyebrows lower in consternation, glaring at him. “Did you change your bandages?” Javier lowers his arms and gently slaps your hand away from the messy tape job on his torso, giving you a look reminiscent of a teenager whose parent insist they put on a coat. 

“I’m not helpless, you know. You said so yourself, it isn’t that bad. I don’t need a babysitter.” You snort at that as you gather up the breakfast plates and rinse them at the sink. 

“Then you’re gonna have to stop acting like such a baby when it comes to….” you stop yourself and quickly covering your near mention of the antibiotics. “...taking care of yourself.” You shake the water from your fingers and return back to the table, looking around pointedly at the whiskey bottles half empty on a shelf and the several empty beer cans smashed and cluttering the counter. You reach across the table and slide the ashtray and nearly empty pack of cigarettes away from him, smirking as you watch him make a grab for them but stopping suddenly when his injury pains him, keeping him from moving as far or as quickly as he would have liked. “You can start by cutting back on these.” He gives you a pointed look, raising an eyebrow.

“Really? If you thought I was a dick last night, do’ya really think dealing with me when I’m craving nicotine’ll be any better?” He watches your face as you consider that for a moment and then, resigned, slide the pack and ashtray back towards him. He doesn't reach for either, though, but instead keeps his gaze on you as his face softens and he says your name softly. You hate how your stomach clenches hearing his velvety gruff voice form the syllables of your name.  _ Get a grip! _ You chastise yourself. “Listen…” he starts, then stops, his eyes dropping to the tabletop for a moment, before raising them again and looking at you abashedly. “I’m sorry about...the way I acted yesterday. The things I said to you. I appreciate your help...even though I don’t act like it.” His apology means the world to you and you nod your head at him, accepting his apology. He shoots you THAT smile: the one he uses when he’s luring in an informant at a bar or flirting with a typist at the office. You look away quickly, breaking the moment. You clear your throat.

“Well, since you took it upon yourself to take care of your stitches, I guess I’ll head out.” He lifts his chin up once in a gesture of agreement. “I’ll be around today. Call me if you need anything, OK?” He repeats the gesture with his chin. “And seriously, Peña, don’t push too hard. You’ve done enough this morning as it is.” He lets his chin drop several times in response this time. You offer to help him relocate to the couch, but he motions to his half full coffee cup on the table before him.

“Nah, I can get there ok. I’m alright here for now.” He looks up at your doubtful face. “I’ll be careful, I promise.” You let it go, hoping that he’s telling the truth and head for the door. You have your hand on the knob when you hear him call your name. You swing back around and enter the kitchen…

...the pill bottle is sitting on the table in front of him next to his coffee cup.  _ Where the fuck did THAT come from? _ You wonder. He says nothing, just watches your face carefully as you spot it. His face remains blank as you look him dead in the eye, putting a hand on your hip and clenching your jaw. 

“Seriously, Peña?” He just shrugs, his face still expressionless. You flop back into the chair you had been in, sighing dramatically. “You just sat here and apologized. You’re really gonna hold me to this stupid idea?” He blinks innocently, saying nothing and continues to look at you. Several long seconds passed as the two of you look at one another, each trying to weigh and measure what the other is thinking. Finally, you roll your eyes to the ceiling and sigh, reaching for the bottle and spilling a pill out into your hand. You flick it across the table towards him and cross your arms over your chest as you watch and wait for him to swallow it, following it with a drink from his coffee cup. Without being told this time, he opens his mouth and shows you that it is indeed gone, to which you roll your eyes even more. 

You let out a sharp gasp mid-eyeroll as the room seems to jolt and move around you. Your body jerks as the chair you sit in moves sharply across kitchen tile, emitting a harsh scrap of wood against ceramic; you look down to find Javier’s foot wrapped around the leg and lower rung of your chair. The sneaky bastard had somehow gotten his foot attached without you noticing and pulled it (and you) closer to his own chair; eliminating the safe chasm of space that had been between you. You’re thrown off balance from the abrupt movement towards him and one hand quickly snaps out to brace yourself on his shoulder, preventing your forward motion from vaulting you into his lap.  _ He would have loved that! _ You think to yourself as you glare at him, pulling your hand back from the toned muscles of his hard chest, hating that you noticed them. He smirks at you, but makes no other movement towards you, keeping his dark eyes locked with yours. 

“God damnit, Peña!” you growl. His eyes flash innocently as he raises his eyebrows.

“What? We had a deal….” You grit your teeth, steadying yourself. After glaring at him a moment longer, you shake your head in exasperation, then lean the final few feet towards him and place your lips on his. 

Once again you’re struck by how soft his lips are. How is it possible that this gruff and bristly grump of a man could have something so soft on his body? The lips that you were feeling now seemed in such stark contradiction to the lips that so often let spill dark curses and angry Spanish and harsh insults to friend and foe alike. It's as though he were a different person entirely sitting here in front of you. For a long moment, your lips merely rest upon one another, pressing softly together again. He has a different strategy this time, it seems, than from the one last night: a split second before your lips meet, he parts his own and carefully lowers his chin, causing your lips to land on his unevenly, giving him leverage to widen his mouth and part yours lips in the process, allowing him the access inside your mouth that his tongue had sought the previous night. Just barely grazing the wet warmth behind your lips, he runs his tongue along your bottom lip searching for the slightest movement or indication from you that would give him permission to extend it further into your mouth. The only movement you make comes from the ministrations of his mouth against yours. You find yourself swirling along with the sensuousness of his wet tongue and the feel of his mustache. You realize you were so taken aback by the chair pull that you had forgotten to plan how many seconds you would allow this to go on. And right now, the taste of him is convincing you that maybe it doesn’t really matter all that much….

  
You sense more than see his hand raise up towards your face and the movement startles you and causes you to pull away from him, but only slightly. You realize you’re both panting softly, breathing into each other’s parted mouths. Your eyes meet his gaze….so close:  _ Yeah...Ok, it’s not just me then,  _ you think with a feeling of satisfaction. You make a fairly solid attempt at swallowing the lump that’s formed in your throat, but you find your mouth has turned to cotton and your brain doesn’t seem to be sending quite the correct signals to the rest of your body. You inadvertently lick your lips and see Javi’s eyes flash dark with desire as they lower to watch your tongue’s journey. You blink a few times and swallow heavily again before pushing back in your chair and rising, turning on your heel and leaving his apartment without another word.


	3. Day Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Javi is so stubborn. But he can be so soft, too.

***

Late Sunday afternoon you find yourself glancing at the clock for what feels like the ten thousandth time. You haven't heard a peep from your partner since you left his apartment mid morning yesterday. He knows where you live and has your number...if he needed something surely he would have called you. He’d changed his own bandages yesterday (albeit badly), and could obviously move around his apartment if he needed to. For the better part of your day, you had bandied about the idea of just not showing up at his apartment at all. Why should you serve him up the opportunity to continue this stupid power game; this one pill, one kiss arrangement? 

You had expected to make him the deal the first night, then figured he would see reason and be an adult and take the antibiotic on his own to prevent infection like any other normal human healing from a gunshot wound. You had assumed it would just be that first kiss; using his attraction to you to get him to do what you wanted. But, you’d been stupid. You’d let him alter the terms. Now you knew he would never let you hear the end of it if you reneged on your part of the deal. His little stunt yesterday with the chair and his tongue made it clear that he not only enjoyed the prospect of 8 more opportunities to kiss you, but that he would most likely turn up the intensity each day. That particular thought made something deep within you spark and unfurl, tightening in your lower belly and sending a shiver up your spine.

Truthfully, you hadn’t exactly hated those two kisses. You had found yourself wandering aimlessly around your apartment several times today, having started with a destination and goal in mind, but finding your thoughts wandering back to Javier and completely forgetting where you were headed or why by the time you got there. Yesterday you had stormed back into your apartment and taken the longest cold shower of your life. Your body seemed to think for itself as it reacted to the memories of Javi’s tongue, the feel of his mustache, his dark eyes peering at you, the feel of his toned muscles beneath your hand. 

If you went back to his apartment and he insisted on continuing with this, you weren’t entirely sure your resolve would be able to convince your body not to give in to more with this maddening man. That absolutely infuriated you....and excited you a little, too.

Finally, you looked at the clock; it read a quarter past 8. You’d just go down quickly and make sure he had at least eaten something. You’d keep your distance from him; there was no way in hell you’d let him catch you off guard today.

As soon as you enter his apartment, you know something isn’t right when you immediately notice his sidearm on the kitchen counter. The apartment iss dark; no muted flickers from the television, no lamps or lights streaming from the living room or kitchen. You glance in his bedroom and small office and find them both dark and empty as well. A chill run through you and you feel a small kernel of panic seed its cold shell in the pit of your stomach. He knew better than to not have his weapon on his person or near him.  _ What the fuck, Peña? Where the hell did you go? _ You are about to race to your own apartment and alert the embassy when you notice the bathroom door ajar at the end of the hall. You carefully nudge it open with your foot, one hand hovering over your own weapon at your hip. 

“Jesus, Peña!” Your eyes widen as you take in your shirtless partner sprawled on the tile floor, his back propped against the side of the bathtub and legs stretched haphazardly in front of him, head tilted back against the porcelain and eyes closed. Around him bits and pieces of torn and bloodied bandage and tape littered the floor, along with his shirt, the pill bottle of antibiotics, and what appeared to be the remaining contents of a first aid kit. All of this is barely visible in the dark of the bathroom, the only source of light from the street light shining through the small window illuminating Javier’s face, making him look jaundiced. You quickly paw the wall for the light switch and your cold panic rises as you snap on the overhead light and take in your partner in full light. 

His face is grey and covered with a thin sheen of sweat. His eyes come open for a moment and look towards you but then quickly close again against the harsh light and he lets his head thump back against the tub. With the light on you are better able to see that the bandage at his side is merely held in place by his arm clenching against his stomach. He must have been in the middle of changing it out when…

“What happened?!” You kneel next to him, grateful that he’s awake, but trying to piece together what exactly had led him to his present situation. You gingerly move his arm out of the way, removing the untaped gauze and looking closely at his wound. Though his stitches looked fine, the skin around the injury was bright red and swollen. “Why the hell are you trying to change your bandage in the dark?” 

“Wasn’t dark when I started.” He bites out. The sun had gone down several hours ago. Your eyes flash up to his drawn face as realization hits you: he’s been here on the bathroom floor for more than three hours. A pang of guilt shoots through your chest and you swallow hard.

You place the back of your hand on his forehead for a moment, then along the side of his face. He sighs, eyes still closed, and leans into your touch like it’s a balm. He doesn’t seem to be running a fever which is a good thing; the sweat must be from the exertion of trying to change the bandage. The doctors had warned that his injury might swell. Assuring him you would be right back and ordering him not to move, you hurry to the kitchen to grab ice. Sweeping the objects on the floor around him out of your way, you sit next to him and gently place the ice against his side. He hisses in a sharp breath at the cold and jolts away, causing another stab of pain to his side and ripping a small groan of pain from his throat. He knocks his head back against the tub three times (a little harder than you were completely comfortable with) and releases a long, growling sigh before stilling once more and taking a deep breath through his nose.

The two of you sit that way in silence for a long while, serenaded by the occasional sound of a passing car on the street, the slow drip of water coming from somewhere, and the sound of each other’s breathing echoing off of the tiles. Silences between the two of you aren’t really new. You have spent hours sometimes sitting in each other’s presence, not speaking but not really needing to as you pored over reports or studied files, content with the long stretches of affable silence. You usually found silences with your partner reassuring. Now, though, the silence that stretched between you was tarnished with your own guilt at having not checked on him sooner. 

You check your watch, confirming that enough time has passed to remove the ice. The swelling seems to have gone down slightly, which is a good sign, but it was still more red than you would like. You’d need to be sure he iced it again before the night was over. Making sure the area is dry, you carefully collect the gauze and tape and set to work rebandaging his side. Despite your worry for his well-being, you try not to notice the way the skin of his taut torso feels beneath your fingers or the trail of dark hair that adorns his lower stomach and disappears beneath the waistband of his jeans. You smooth the last piece of tape down and glance up, only to find that his head is no longer tilted back and he’s watching your face, his eyes soft. Those brown eyes seem to seize your own and you can’t bring yourself to look away. 

“I’m sorry,” you say softly. His eyes flash with a question.

“What for?” You look down at your hands, folding them on your lap. 

“For not coming to check on you sooner.” You force yourself to look back up at him. “ I was...I dunno. I was embarrassed, I guess. Well, maybe not embarrassed...I was just…” You take a deep breath. “I was anxious after….after yesterday…” you let that trail off. He knows what you mean. He looks at you for a few moments longer, his face unreadable. Then he breaks your gaze and reaches for the pill bottle on the floor next to him. Your stomach drops as he spills a pill into his hand quickly and swallows it. Without looking at you, he replaces the lid on the bottle, then reaches to take one of your hands with one of his. He turns your hand palm up and draws it up to place it against his cheek, mirroring your earlier touch to his face. Once again, he leans into your touch and closes his eyes, letting the seconds stretch and widen as he reveles in the feel of your skin against his, then he turns his face and places a soft kiss on the palm of your hand, holding his lips against your skin for several moments. His eyes slip open and meet yours over the edge of your hand. Your breath hitches softly when you see the longing and desire there.

As though in slow motion, he releases and returns your hand to its original spot on your lap, his eyes never leaving yours. You sit stunned for a moment, unsure of what to do next. 

“Guess it’s a good thing I was motivated to take my meds, huh? This all could have been a lot worse.” He gestures around at the mess of bandages and paraphernalia around you. He sighs and slowly sits up straighter. “I think I’m probably gonna need some help getting up and to the couch, though.” You know your face shows the confusion you’re feeling.  _ Was that it? He gets one kiss per pill and THAT’S what he uses today’s to do?  _ A tiny voice in the back of your head grumbles in disappointment, but you quickly smash that voice, snapping out of your thoughts and standing up, offering both hands down to help him get to his feet. 

When he’s standing in front of you, he grips your hands for a moment, keeping you closer than you know you should be. Your guard goes up, ready to call him out for having already used his daily dose should he try to go in for another kiss. He lifts your hands in his up in a gesture to bring your eyes up to meet his own. 

“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he says in response to your earlier apology. “I knew you’d find me eventually. You always do.”


	4. Day Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After his night on his bathroom floor, Javi's probably given up on the whole one pill, one kiss deal...right?

***

Though Javi wasn’t cleared to go back to the office or into active field duty yet, the man was relentless when it came to his work. Before Monday was over, you had received no less than 20 phone calls and pages throughout the day from him, bouncing ideas off of you, calling to ask a question or asking you to check some statistic or fact for him. It seemed as though the plethora of down time that Javi now faced only served to heighten his focus on the job. You hauled a brown file box up the stairs to his apartment that evening, along with a bottle of wine for yourself and several take-out containers balanced precariously on the lid of the box. You were only a little annoyed at his request to schlep some of the paperwork from his office to his apartment, but you hoped that having the work at home would keep him from tormenting you throughout the day tomorrow.

Once you plopped the carton on the kitchen table, you made quick work of the cork in the wine bottle and poured yourself a small glass while Javier dove into the take out containers. You had inquired on several of his earlier calls as to whether he had eaten anything throughout the day; he had only grunted like a caveman and changed the subject, so it was no surprise to you now that he ate ravenously. Seriously, how has this man managed to survive on his own this long? You thought to yourself as you dug into your own food. 

Talk was mostly about work, for which you were grateful. It prevented you from having to think too much about the pill bottle sitting next to the kitchen sink. The tiny plastic tube had become a harbinger for you; a constant bright orange beacon that reminded you of the last three days. As Javi carefully collects the empty food containers and throws them in the trash, your eyes float over to the bottle, wondering if the chasteness of the kiss the night before in the bathroom means that Javier has seen the light when it comes to this silly deal; that perhaps after his painful time spent on his bathroom floor he’s realized the importance of just taking the damn drugs already.

But, if there was one thing you had come to know for a fact about Javier Peña, it was that he didn’t give up so easily on something that he wanted. 

And you knew that he wanted you.

You knew when you made this deal that it was a dangerous dance, toeing on up to the line with the devil himself. A logical voice inside your head (the one you hated more than anything) had asked you several times why you had agreed to this deal when you knew how tempting it would be for the both of you? And for that annoying voice with that equally annoying question, you had no good answer.

Because if the truth were known, deep down inside somewhere, you knew that you wanted him too.

But, your resolve was just as strong as his. No matter how you felt about him or what desires you may have for him, so long as you were partners, nothing would ever move past occasional flirting and camaraderie.  
And 10 days of kissing, apparently. 

Javier snatchs up the pill bottle from the counter, his back to you, and tosses back a pill. You stiffen, waiting for him to turn to you and seek out a kiss in exchange. He surprises you by making a beeline to the couch instead and begins spreading out the files, photos and reports on the coffee table in front of him, chattering to you the whole time. Careful to maintain your distance, you sit in the chair close enough to see the table, still leery of your partner’s nonchalance towards your pill deal. As you continue to pore over the files and photos, though, you relax and slip into the comforting certainty of work: the thing you were both the best at.

At one point, you rise to refill your wine glass (careful not to drink too much, too fast) and when you reenter the living room, Javi holds up two nearly identical satellite photos of a jungle compound for you to examine. Without thinking about it, you take both photos and sink down on the couch beside him, studying the images.

“I don’t think Rinaldo would be stupid enough to send a convoy on these roads. There are too many eyes on them, they wouldn’t want to risk someone tipping us off and laying a trap for them.”

“They don’t need to worry about anyone ratting on them if they’ve got the local cops on their payroll.” Javi argues back. “It’s brazen. Rinaldo would do it just so he could say he moved product right under our noses.” You shrug, still not convinced, but knowing that there was a very good chance that he was right. Which would make your job 10 times harder. You lay the photos down side-by-side and pulled a topographic map from underneath the pile, laying it out on top of the photos.

“Well, if we’re talking waterways, he has access and exit routes here, here and here,” you indicate on the map. “But a water entry seems too messy for him, too risky. Too many things could go wrong. Cars would be his most reliable bet.” Javi nods in agreement. 

You both stare at the map for several minutes, listening to Peña lay out a possible and fairly plausible strategy for bringing in a top drug mule. When he’s finished, you nod in approval, sitting up straight for a moment then leaning back and slouching into the couch and stretching your arms over your head, realizing too late that doing so raised your shirt up towards your breasts, revealing your stomach and torso. You don’t miss the way Javi glances over at you, his eyes traveling down your body and taking in the exposed skin, before looking away and back at the photographs. You quickly lower your arms and sit up, pulling your shirt down. “I’ll uhm…..I’ll speak with the ambassador tomorrow, see if we can’t get some eyes on those mountain roads.” Javier nods again, looking back over at you. 

You meet his gaze, and feel a jolt as you realize his eyes have lost their focus and glimmer from discussing work, and have shifted to reflect something darker and more intense; you’re starting to become more and more familiar with that look. You’re also still completely baffled how that same look manages to pin you in place and make you freeze, seeming to cause your brain to turn to mush and your legs into useless jelly. There was still almost a full couch cushion’s worth of space between the two of you, but it felt like that space prickled with heat and electricity. You needed to move away from him before…

Too late, you watch in fascination as Javier carefully leans across the space between you. He places one hand on the cushion to brace himself and balance before continuing to follow the momentum of his body’s lean in your direction. How was he able to stretch that far? A tiny voice screams in fascination. You notice how his neck seems to become longer and leaner, revealing muscles and tendons that you never normally noticed...not that you spend much time studying your partner’s neck. 

Though you're proud of your body for not leaning towards him, you were still disappointed in yourself for not moving away. But, staying still, his face comes within a hair’s breadth of yours and he pauses, his eyes roving over your face for a moment, searching your eyes for…something? You aren’t sure what. You keep your face still in what you hope is a blank expression, which Javi seems to interpret as a green light. He carefully closes the last centimeters separating the two of you and slots his lips against yours. You feel him release a soft puff of air through his nose, causing the tiny hairs of his mustache to dance against your skin. 

This kiss is soft. He doesn’t try to pry your mouth open with his tongue, his hands remain where they were. He barely moves his head at all, but simply presses his lips to yours, seeming to study and memorize the feel of your lips against his. Though it’s tame and quiet, it is one of the most sensual things you have ever experienced. 

Before you can come to your senses, Javi breaks the kiss, lowering his head for a brief moment, his forehead grazing across your lips as he pulls his entire body back across the space between you on the couch. He looks at you for a moment, then turns his attention back to the information spread out on the coffee table. He picks up an overflowing manila folder without a word and settles back into the couch cushions to read the reports.

You sit stunned for a moment, then swallow carefully. You rise and say your good nights, to which he wishes you a good night and sweet dreams. Turning your back to him as you leave, you let a small smile play across your lips that still tingles with his taste and the weight of his soft lips, thinking that a guest appearance by him would certainly help make those dreams sweet.


	5. Day Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are heating up

***

You weren't going to let him surprise you today. If Javier Peña meant to keep up this stupid game for ten whole days, you were NOT going to let him continue to have the power. This whole thing had been your idea, after all! You weren’t about to let down your end of this arrangement and allow him to think he had beaten you. You had fought so much and so hard for too many things in your career and in your life. One man-child of a DEA agent wasn’t going to beat you. 

Even if that man-child was extremely attractive. 

Even if he did have eyes that magnetized you in place and made every atom in your body stand at attention when he looked at you THAT way. 

Even if he had the softest lips and was the best goddamn kisser you had ever met. 

Even if you had had to take a cold shower this morning to keep yourself from pawing furiously between your legs again after doing so three times the night before after leaving his apartment. 

You couldn’t seem to forget the feel of his warm cheek on your palm from that time in the bathroom, or the way his tongue felt along the seam of your lips that first night, or the hungry look in his eyes when he had hauled your chair towards him in the kitchen. Last night had been a calculated move on his part, you knew. He was playing this game...and he was good at it. You had missed the flag to start, but now that you knew the game was on, it was soooo on.

You plotted and schemed all day at the office, barely able to concentrate in your debriefing meeting and hardly able to hold a conversation with anyone for more than a few minutes. You spent far too much time trying to determine a course of action against one Mr. Javier Peña and by the end of the day, you decided a direct approach was best. The two of you had always been frank with one another in matters of work; your honesty with one another was one of the things that you both appreciated and also hated equally about your partnership. Neither one of you ever told the other what they wanted to hear, only what they needed to hear, whether they liked it or not. It had resulted in a fair number of screaming matches and once or twice a side swipe or thrown object (on your part with that one, sadly, Peña had never once truly lost his temper to that degree with you.) 

That honesty and directness was missing from this whole “deal”. Except...maybe it really wasn’t. You would never admit to your partner that you really didn’t mind all that much when his lips found their way to yours, but you could be honest with yourself. You turned each one over in your mind all night long and, just like last night, had closed your eyes and remembered his face, his breath on your skin, the sound of his soft sighs as you pumped your fingers in and out of your folds, desperate to not admit to yourself that you wished it was him between your legs instead. You had truly lost control.

But tonight you intended to take it back.

You knock this time before entering his apartment, taking a moment before opening the door to unbutton one more button than normal on your blouse, knowing full it would have an effect on him...and it does. He turns his head towards you as you wave him a hello and head straight to the kitchen, not missing the way his gaze shoots down towards your chest and his eyes spark. You snatch a pill out of the bottle in the kitchen quietly, reheat a burrito and place it on a small plate, bringing it and a glass of water into the living room. You creep up on him stealthily, sliding the plate and glass onto the small side table next to him. He’s stretched out in his recliner, vacantly watching some show on TV; a puff piece about some river tribe in the jungle. He’s wearing green sweatpants and a grungy white tank top, one arm folded behind his head, the other resting on his stomach. Perfect, you think, seizing the moment before he can tear his focus away from the TV.

You step around into his line of vision and carefully press down with your foot on the elevated foot rest of the chair, lowering it carefully until it clicked, bringing his whole body forward and into an upright sitting position. You move to stand between his legs, holding the pill between your thumb and index finger enticingly in the air between you like a treat for an animal. His eyes widen just a bit and you bite back a smirk. He reaches to take the pill from you but you pull it just out of his grasp, shaking your head once, softly. He looks up at your face, confused. You very slowly and very intentionally let the tip of your tongue slip between your lips, sliding from one corner to another before opening your mouth just a little, showing him what you want him to do. His eyes grow wider still but you’re satisfied when he obediently mirrors you and opens his mouth like a baby bird waiting for a worm. You smile down at him, pleased with the upper hand. 

You’ve played temptress before on undercover assignments. You know it has driven him crazy the times he’s listened in or had to watch from a backup position as you snaked your hands through some greasy sicario’s hair or moved your body lithely against a drunken informant’s lap, whispering how badly you wanted them into their ears (and directly into the headphones he had sometimes been wearing to listen in.) He had dreamed about what it would be like on the receiving end of such a hypnotic seduction. His brain wasn’t working properly. In the distant back of his mind he knew what you were doing, but for the life of him he just couldn’t seem to muster the ability to care.

Slowly, devastatingly slowly, you lift one leg and prop your knee on the seat of the recliner along the outside of his thigh, then repeat the motion with the other leg until you are straddling him, holding yourself over him, torso flush against his chest, breasts eye level and peeking through the material of your unbuttoned blouse. He vaguely recognizes they’re there, but he can’t tear his eyes away from your face, watching, waiting on a knife’s edge for whatever instructions you’re going to give him next.

You slide one hand up his shoulder and behind his neck, raking your fingernails through the short hair at the nape of his neck, causing him to suck in his breath sharply. Your other hand hovers over his mouth, the pill still held delicately between your two fingers. You feel yourself getting wet as you watch his mouth open wider and his chin lift upwards just a little towards your hand. From your vantage point you can see his tongue raise, waiting to take the pill like a sugar cube or a sweet. You smile down at him, holding the pill just outside his lips for a few moments more, fascinated by his eagerness. Then, you carefully place it on his tongue, intentionally allowing your fingers to brush his tongue and collect wetness from his mouth. You let both fingers catch on his bottom lip as you pull them out of his mouth before raising your hand to your own mouth and gently sucking on the tip of your thumb, tasting the wet you had collected from his mouth. He swallows the pill quickly and you snake the hand at your mouth around to join the other behind his neck and slowly, slowly, oh so slowly...lower yourself down to settle onto his lap.

As your hips make contact, you let out a nearly inaudible gasp, feeling through his thin sweatpant material exactly what effect you were having on him. He was hard as steel and, though you’ve heard the same stories about Javier Peña as every other female that worked at the embassy, you now have confirmation that the stories are absolutely true. And oh sweet baby Jesus how your own heat throbbed at the feel of him between your legs. You close your eyes for a moment, reaching deep down to pull your resolve and restraint to the forefront of your mind. Focused again, you let your eyes open but keep them half lidded and burning as you meet his. He’s still staring in awe at you, his breath puffing out in quiet, unsteady huffs. For a moment you feel slightly bad about teasing him this way; you are shamelessly leading him on and you know it...but you brush that away with a soft grind of your hips against the hardness in his lap and you feel your panties wet even more when he lets out a strangled moan at the contact, his eyes falling closed and his mouth drooping open once more. That was all the invitation you needed...it was crucial that you finish this before you soaked through your jeans and showed him how much you wanted this to be real.

You place your open mouth over his own, letting your tongue meet his when it darts out from between his lips like a spark catching into a flame. He moans again, a higher pitch this time, sounding a touch desperate, sending the sound through your mouth and down into your body. The vibration seems to dance along your spine and into the very tips of your fingers and down into your toes, making them curl inside your boots. You slide yourself along the growing length in his lap, back and forth, creating a thrilling friction that makes a molten lava pool in your abdomen. You find yourself unconsciously moving your hips faster as your tongue continues to sweep along the insides of his mouth. His hands had come up to tighten around your waist at some point and now they were both splayed flat against your skin beneath your blouse, (hmmm….when had THAT happened?) creeping their way up towards your bra clasp. You can feel your vision starting to shake around the edges and your mind seems to be snapping thoughts like jolts of electricity through your body. You know you’re about to lose control yourself. You rock your hips and make one more delicious, long hard drag along his lap, stroking yourself along him one more time…

Then abruptly pulled back from his mouth, untangling your hands from his hair and hopping off the chair. It happens so fast, you’re able to satisfyingly take in how his eyes are still closed, his tongue extended after you and chasing yours for a moment, his hands grasping for skin that was no longer within reach. His eyes fly open and he looks at you with a mix of confusion, desperation and indignation. Before he can protest or even move to grab you back towards him, you’re headed for the door. You hear a soft “fuck” breathed out quietly behind you as you open the door.

“Sweet dreams, Peña.”


	6. Day Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steamy times...hand around the neck...pressed up against a door...oh yeah!! =-0)

***

The next day proves to be a long one. You were woken up in the early hours of the morning with a pager from the embassy: there had been movement at one of the labs under watch, but it wasn’t the usual players that were doing the transporting. The confusion and introduction of new players meant that you and the rest of your DEA colleagues would need to proceed with caution. You had reached out to several of your informants first thing in the morning, but it took most of the anxious day to hear from any of them. A few leads, but nothing particularly enlightening that you didn’t already know. 

You found yourself at the bar of  Hotel Tequendama that evening chatting up the cocky punk tending to the hotel bar. You had confirmed that he had been working several nights ago when a group of sicarios had held a birthday party in a back room and this guy was full enough of himself that he was happy to mention that he had served them...perfect! You worked him as you nursed a few drinks, sweet talking and flirting with him. By the time his shift ended, he had taken a few shots with you and was sufficiently plied with alcohol to take you up on your suggestion that he “see you home safely”. 

When you arrived, you’d reached across the center console and rubbed along the front of his pants, suckling his neck and ear, whispering to him that you’d love to hear more of his stories. He was just a bit too eager, though and he babbled anecdotes (some useful, some not, some clearly made up) as you gave him a quick hand job there in his car on the dark street in front of your building. It didn’t take long. He grinned at you after as though he had given you something to really love. And, in a way, perhaps he had. You logged away the information he had freely told you, making a quick exit from his vehicle and heading up the steps of the building. You glance up as you ascend the steps and stop, thinking for a brief moment that you had seen the curtains move in the dark window of Javier’s front facing street window.  _ Probably just the air _ , you think as you haul yourself up the stairs, swinging by your apartment to drop off your bag, collect leftovers from your fridge and pull out the carton of cigarettes you’d picked up for him.

You find him sitting at the kitchen table as you had several days ago, this time a sulky, dark expression on his face. He’s shirtless again and there’s a bottle of whiskey and nearly empty glass on the table in front of him, a pill sitting on the table next to the glass. He makes sure you’ve spotted the medicine before snatching it up and swallowing it, chasing it with the rest of the amber liquid in his glass.

“You shouldn’t be drinking while you’re on that medication, Peña,” you say offhandedly as you drop the carton of smokes on the table in front of him and move to reheat the leftovers. Before you can move away from the table, he grabs your arm.

“You got yourself a side job, now?” He snarls, holding up your hand between the two of you accusingly. You feel your face flush with rage at his insinuation and attempt to pull your arm out of his grasp, but he grips tighter, refusing to let you go.

“Fuck you, Peña!” You spit out at him in response. “That’s a real shitty thing for YOU of all people to say.” You pull your arm harder, but still aren’t successful in wrenching it from his grasp. He uses your backward motion of pulling yourself away to pull himself to his feet, yanking you closer towards him. “Don’t you DARE try to lecture me...take that fuckin’ double standard and shove it up your ass.” You feel tears starting to prick behind your eyes and you pull harder on your arm, desperate to get out of the apartment before you start crying in front of him. You hated that he knew what you had been doing in that car. You hated the ease with which you had been able to complete the dubious action with the bartender...and you hated the fact that it had been made easier by imagining that it had been your partner that you had been pleasuring in that car. You use your other hand to grab at Peña’s clutch on your forearm and dig your nails into the soft skin of his wrist and twist hard, causing him to release your arm, ripping his hand away from you. He pauses for a moment, dark anger boiling in his eyes, his lip curled in a snarl before he snatches out his hand again, grabbing for your attacking hand. You parry his reach and slap the hand away, pushing his chest roughly with your other hand and stepping back from him. 

He’s thrown off balance slightly, but rights himself almost instantly, his rage now white hot across his face. You aren’t sure that you’ve ever seen him look so angry, certainly not at you. You spin around and move quickly to the door, refusing to speak one more word to him until he has apologized. You’ve just opened the door a crack when Javier’s arm reaches past your shoulder to smack the door closed, the knob tearing out of your grip. In a split second before you can turn and push him away to get the door open again, he has both of your shoulders in his hands. He roughly spins you around and pushes you forcefully back against the door, putting his weight into you to keep you from moving your arms.

“Don’t do it again.” He growls, his voice dangerous and dark. 

“Get off of me.” You hiss at him, shoving your knee up and pushing your midsection forward to add more weight behind the jab, but he forces your leg back down by slamming his pelvis into your lower body and pressing his full weight into you, pinning you to the door. You’re so startled by the sudden full body contact that you stop fighting to get free from him for a moment. Seeming to take your pause as some sign of resignation, he lowers his head closer to you and hisses quietly.

“Don’t. Do it. Again.” 

“Fuck you, Peña.” You have never cursed someone with more venom in your life. If only your words could inflict as much pain as you wanted to cause him right now. Rather than respond back to you, though, he just stares at you. And then the look in his eyes shifts...and suddenly you realize that this isn’t about you giving a handie to the guy in the car. You start to open your mouth again but he cuts you off. 

“That shit last night? Thought that was real fuckin’ funny, didn’t you?” You say nothing, just stare at him with a steely look. He lowers his head closer…

...You whip your head forward to head butt him away from you but he pulls back a split second before you make contact and you merely succeed in glancing off his jaw. You use his backwards motion to push yourself into him and away from the door. Your arms loosened, you grapple with his hands, trying to get them off of you but, infuriatingly, he’s stronger than you and though you were loose for a moment, he quickly slams you back into the door once more, pressing even harder into you this time, wrenching both hands above your head and gripping them in a vise grip with one hand, grasping his other hand firmly around your neck, pressing the pads of his fingers into the soft skin there, squeezing. It makes you stop, waiting for him to add more pressure, your eyes suddenly wide; you know Javi has a temper, you’ve seen it. But you never in a million years have ever thought that he could hurt you. 

He stares into your eyes for a few moments, searching, both of you panting. Then he adds an instant of more pressure to your neck before releasing it, but keeps his hand placed there. His gaze flicks down to your lips then rakes up to your eyes. He swallows hard, licks his lips. 

You feel your eyes filling with angry tears again. Dammit! Why couldn’t you keep your shit together? All you could do was spit out another soft “fuck you!” into his face.

His kiss this time is hard and brimming on violent. It’s furious and hot, both of you tangling your tongues together immediately, teeth clicking, lips sliding over lips; it was messy and wet and desperate, too and you descend into the passion of it as long moments stretch past. You dimly become aware of his pelvis mindlessly rocking into yours, the hardness in his jeans rubbing into you, making you gasp into his mouth. He grinds his hips into yours roughly once, pinning your lower body to the door and thrusting the outline of his dick between your legs. A small cry escapes against his lips and disappears down his throat and he releases your hands, bringing his down to grip your ass, pulling you impossibly closer. Your arms drop around his shoulders and you card your fingers through his hair roughly, hearing him sigh softly. Unconsciously, You hitch a leg from beneath where he had pinned them and wrap it around his hip, opening yourself for better access for his groin.

You're unsure how long the kiss lasts, but he finally breaks the kiss and you’re both breathing frantically. As he pulls back he takes your lower lip between his teeth, biting it gently for a moment before releasing it and pulling back slightly to look into your eyes again. There was no dark anger in his eyes this time, though. Only a question. He presses his forehead to yours, blowing out a puff of breath and closing his eyes, lowering his mouth to yours again and hovering just over your lips. He whispers:

“We can do this without kissing…” he lets the suggestion settle between you. It’s a question; an out. A chance for you to say yes, to give him permission.

It’s your turn to swallow hard now. You lick your own lips and let out a heavy sigh, sliding your hands out of his hair and onto his shoulders, steadying yourself for a moment as you place your foot back firmly on the floor. You push on his shoulders, gently but firmly. Your foreheads are still pressed together, but he pulls away now, looking at you, eyes full of disappointment, of longing. You can barely meet his gaze. 

He says nothing, drops his hand from your neck, steps away from you, reaches around you and opens the door, resting his arm high on the door jamb. You have to duck under his arm slightly to get past him and despite the space he’s put between you, he’s still close enough that you brush against his body as you bob low to get beneath his arm. Without another word or glance back, you walk out of his apartment. 

Your breath seems to cut through you like a knife when you hear his door shut quietly behind you and the tears you had kept at bay earlier start to fall.


	7. Day Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another day, another pill. But you find a surprise exiting Javier's apartment the morning after your own rough encounter with him.

***

You dread going to Javi’s apartment the next day. You hadn’t slept at all the night before, had really only succeeded in crying yourself into a light doze for an hour or so in the early morning hours before waking up and staring at the ceiling of your bedroom. Knowing you would never be able to get to sleep, you had finally dragged yourself out of bed, showered and decided to head in to work early. 

You should have stayed in bed.

As you slip quietly into the hallway of your apartment, you see movement out of the corner of your eye further down the hall, towards Javi’s apartment door. You glance that direction and your stomach turns watery: a woman carefully exits Javi’s apartment door, shooting you a half-heartedly bashful look before trip-tropping down the building’s main staircase. You spot his shadow behind the small crack in the doorway of his place and you feel his eyes on you for a few moments. Then the door clicks shut softly, the sound like a punch to your gut.

You’re not sure how long you stand frozen in front of your own apartment door, but by the time you’re able to force your legs to work and move you down the stairs to your car in the garage, most of the tears you didn’t realize were falling have dried. You’re ashamed of the tracks they’ve made, both last night and this morning, as you assess your face in the rearview mirror; what the fuck had you been thinking? Javier Peña was who he was...and that wasn’t ever going to change, no matter how many childish games he played with you. 

At least now you’d be able to put those silly butterflies you’d been feeling around him behind you; be able to stop imagining his hands on you during the dark hours of the night, stop thinking about how good it had felt to feel his full weight pressed against you, his warm skin under your hand, the hardness of him notched between your legs.

Yeah...at least now you’d be able to stop thinking about all of those things…

***

The day is yet another long one. You hear nothing from Javier all day...and you hadn’t expected to, really. Despite what you had told yourself this morning, your thoughts stray to your partner more times than you would have liked. 

You waffle back and forth between being angry with him for his outburst last night and being sad. When the anger takes over, you settle into it, satisfied with the energy your rage and indignation gives you. How dare he treat you that way: both of you had done plenty of things that you weren’t necessarily proud of during your time down here. You had occasionally bared those feelings with one another during the long, mindless stretches of a stakeout or over a boozy, smoke-filled late night chat after an all-nighter at the office. Last night he had effectively thrown those moments when you’d allowed yourself to be vulnerable with him out the window, used something that he knew very well you weren’t proud of as ammunition against you to make you feel bad. 

The sadness was more troublesome and nearly crippling to deal with. It would overwhelm your anger like a wave and cause you to nearly crumble, sending you frantically into a stall in the bathroom to hide your watery eyes or sobbing gasps. You had no right to feel betrayed by him, you kept telling yourself. No right to be so upset by the woman leaving his apartment this morning...you had said no last night, you had chosen to leave. You could have kept your arms around his neck and kissed him again, could have wrapped your leg around his waist along with the other one and whispered in his ear for him to do all the things to you that you had been dreaming about for so long. He wasn’t yours to be upset over. He was a grown man that had needs, you understood that. And you knew how he operated. You shouldn’t have been so surprised by the woman this morning. Of course he would have needed to find some sort of release. But the thought of her...the thought of what she had been there for...made your stomach turn. 

It could have been you…

You manage to get through the day, joining a contingent of Columbian police as they investigate an abandoned building for evidence of being a distribution lab. Unfortunately it ends up being a dead end, but the focus required in analyzing the building top to bottom helps distract you for the most part. Now you’re sitting at your desk, arms crossed, zoned out and staring into space, trying to decide if you could get away with sleeping at the office. 

_ Don’t be ridiculous! _ You chide yourself.  _ You have a fucking apartment. And you don’t have to even see him, just go home. _ You sigh, glancing at the clock and starting at how late it is: almost one in the morning. You gather your things and start your journey home, knowing full well that Javier Peña is a pain that you cannot seem to stop inflicting upon yourself.

***

You pause outside his door, trying to force yourself to keep walking to your own apartment. But it’s like some kind of magnetic energy. You feel yourself being pulled to his door, sliding his key into the lock and slipping in soundlessly.

The TV is quiet and is once again the only light in the apartment. You glance into the living room, seeing him stretched out once again on the couch, his chest rising and falling slowly, mouth slightly open, a soft snore emitting from him on his inhale. You tiptoe into the kitchen and very quietly fill a glass of water and reach for the pill bottle next to the sink. You shake the pills into your hand, then pause, gazing at the tiny objects in your palm, thinking to yourself...counting carefully. There are only three pills in your hand, rather than four. He had already taken his pill today.

He hadn’t waited for you.

You don’t know what to make of the feeling that shoots through your chest. You are at the same moment pleased and heartbroken.  _ Stop it! _ You think to yourself.  _ This was the point all along!  _ But that does nothing to tamp down the bubble of sadness you feel: he must have finally tired of this game with you, had no further interest in cashing in on the last few days of your deal. You take a deep breath, steadying yourself. It was for the best that way, anyway.

You put the pills back in the bottle, snap a banana from a bunch on the counter and silently creep into the living room, gently placing both the fruit and the water on the coffee table next to him. You straighten, then feel a hand grasp your own as you turn to go. 

You look down at his hand touching yours; you can’t bring yourself to look at him.

His grip is gentle, soft: nothing like it was the previous night. He doesn’t pull; barely applies any pressure at all...just holds your hand in his lightly. His thumb slowly brushes back and forth over your knuckles like it’s a habit, something that a lover would do unconsciously, naturally. You stare at the small, tender movement, still not looking at him.

“I’m sorry.”

You almost don’t hear it. The two words are so soft, almost a sigh, nearly lost in the hitch of his breath and the rough gravel of his voice. His thumb stops moving on your knuckles, expectant, waiting. Still staring at your clasped hands, you take a deep breath...then you release it, not realizing you had held onto it. You look at him.

You’ve never seen this look in his eyes before. A million things seem to shine out from his sleepy gaze. You clearly identify sadness, worry, earnestness...but there’s so much more there that you’re not sure about. Perhaps shame...maybe wistfulness. That same look of longing you had seen the night before with his forehead pressed to yours. The way he looks at you with those deep wells of brown: he’s like a puppy looking up at you with a mix of fear at being struck and beaten, and a desperate hope of being loved despite whatever trouble he'd caused. You know him well enough to know that his apology encompasses a lot, covering the things he had said to you last night, the way he had grabbed you so forcefully...maybe even for the woman you'd seen this morning. 

You feel your chest contract and you struggle to swallow. You say nothing because you’re not sure you can without your voice cracking. Instead you simply nod, trying to smile to reassure him that the two of you will be ok, only managing a brief flick upward of one corner of your mouth. 

Instead, you squeeze his hand gently for a moment. You see his eyes relax at the pressure of your hand on his, can see relief transform him. He carefully pulls your clasped hands towards his face, pressing his lips to your knuckles where his thumb had previously been. You close your eyes to keep your tears at bay and you fight to tamp down the knot in your throat. He releases his kiss from your skin, but holds your hand against his face for a moment longer, taking a careful, long breath as though inhaling the scent of you, filing the memory of your skin against his.

You manage to swallow the lump in your throat and you carefully open your eyes. He raises his eyes and meets your gaze and you know he can see the tears there. Worry draws his brows together; he moves your hand away from his face and opens his mouth to say something, seems to struggle with the words so he simply closes his mouth again. 

You carefully slide your hand away from his... 

...and slip out of his apartment without a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for the feedback! The comments I've gotten so far have been so sweet and have really inspired me to stay focused and write more. I can't tell you how much it means to me.
> 
> Be well!


	8. Day Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You have a bad day at work and seek out Javi to keep you company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter gets a little preachy, I guess, with the sexism in the workplace. It's a real issue, of course (especially back then even more so than now) but I suppose if anyone doesn't want to read about that they can skip this chapter. Promise the heat will go back up soon.=-0)
> 
> Be well!

***

The Friday work day ends early for you and finds you seething as you stomp up the stairs to your apartment carrying two loaded bags, one stuffed with your favorite take out food, the other clinking with multiple bottles of red wine (and one large bottle of whiskey). 

It had been that kind of day.

All you wanted to do was drink yourself into a fuzzy stupor so you could forget the bullshit from today. The second you’re in your apartment, you shuck off your work clothes in the main entryway and pop open a bottle of wine in the kitchen wearing nothing but your bra and underwear. As you gulp down the first sharp taste of tart alcohol, you wander to your bedroom. By the time you’ve washed your face, put your hair up out of your face and changed into comfy shorts and a ratty tshirt, your glass is empty. It’s a good thing tomorrow’s Saturday because you can tell right now you’re probably going to have a major headache in the morning. You click on your record player and turn up your favorite Bruce Springsteen album, then snuggle into your couch with your food, another full glass and a trashy romance novel. A few bites into your meal, though, and your train of thought wanders back to your day and you lose your appetite.

How dare they! How dare they all. YOU were the one responsible for that intel. After the shit you’d had to do to track down that punk bartender and get him to talk...no one even bothered to acknowledge it. Not that you required them to stoke your ego and tell you how great you were, it wasn’t like that at all. It was when you were passed over despite your hard work and someone else completely undeserving earned the praise that infuriated you. It was always that way (most of the time, anyway). Every single male colleague you worked with always seemed to overlook the fact that, more often than not, you brought things to investigations that might not normally have happened; that you worked as hard as they did...oftentimes harder. You had to to be successful in a man’s world. You were damn good at your job. As cliche as it sounded, you often thought it as your woman’s intuition...an idea that many people scoffed at, but you knew was actually a legitimate and important trait. But today had been more than just the usual workplace sexism. Once again you had been overlooked as being an integral part of the team. It happened so often by now that you were still surprised when it stung so much. Today you had just felt like breaking. So you had left work early...not even bothering to clock out or finish your paperwork. 

Fuck them!

You couldn’t stop yourself this time. Tears began to fall again ( _ Christ, when did you become such a crybaby?!?) _ and you shoved your face into a throw pillow as you sobbed for several minutes, getting the anger and frustration out of your system. It was so unfair. And you knew that if you had been born with a penis and were in the same situation, it would be a different story all together. You also felt a pang of longing: if Javier hadn’t been sidelined and out of commission, you know he would have had your back today. He was the one exception to the sexism you experience (most of the time). It had taken some coaching on your part when you had first become partners; he had made his fair share of blunders that had hurt you and been unfair. But he had always listened when you had called him on his bullshit, when you had explained how the things he did or said made you feel badly, explained how they were not fair solely based on the fact that you were female. Early on he had learned to be more aware when he did something wrong and though he had struggled at first, he had also learned how to apologize. He still occasionally did or said something thoughtless, but he usually was quick to recognize it and he had inadvertently become your champion when things like today happened. Though you hated to admit it, when he spoke up to others on your behalf, it made you feel good...although it also enraged you that a man’s voice pointing out your hard work was heard by the other men in a room rather than them all just recognizing it on their own. Javi would have stood up for you today if he had been there.

Thinking about your partner reminds you that you should probably check in with him before you get too tanked...you definitely don’t want to interact with him after you’ve had as much wine as you were planning to have...and after you’ve been reading things you know you’ll encounter in your book.

You snatch up the bottle of whiskey, not bothering to hunt down his keys and patter down the hall to his apartment, tap, tap, tapping on his door, enjoying the soft buzz the wine was making you feel on the edges of your thoughts, eager to make sure he was set for the evening so that you could get back your own apartment.

As soon as Javi opens the door you realize immediately that you've made several critical errors despite only being one glass of wine in. His eyes immediately travel down your body, taking in your exposed neck; it was unusual for you to wear your hair up like this. They roam further and assess your t-shirt with hardly any elastic, the collar hanging low and dipping off one shoulder. Despite the fact that you swim in the material, it's obvious to his keen eye that you are not wearing a bra beneath it. You start to shuffle a little as his eyes travel further and rake down your bare legs, his lips curling into a smirk when he sees your bright yellow, fuzzy socks. You roll your eyes at his roaming gaze.  _ My champion... _ you think sarcastically.

“Hey!” You say loudly, snapping your fingers in front of his face a few times then waving your hand in front of your own face, drawing his eyes away from your exposed legs. “My eyes are up here, Peña. You don’t need to be lookin’ anywhere else.” He shoots you a guilty grin, knowing he's caught and you feel some pressure leave your chest. After his apology last night and the unspoken sweet moment that had followed, you had been afraid things might be weird between you. Thankfully, though, things feel ok...until you see the smile drop from his face and his forehead crease in concern.

“What happened?” He asks. You pause, confused by what he means. Then you realize: you had just been sobbing into a pillow in your apartment...no doubt your face looks as puffy and red as it feels. You hold up the bottle of whisky.

“I got passed over for another commendation today.” Your voice is full of false cheeriness, edged in steel and highlighted with fury. Javi’s eyebrows come together. “Agent Dickhead got it instead. Want to have a celebratory shot with me?” 

“Sure,” and he steps back from the doorway and lets you in.

***

Javi was appropriately outraged along with you at the injustice of the entire situation as you sat at his kitchen table. After inviting you in, he had gotten glasses for you both as well as a bowl of chips and you had poured them each a drink. Out of the corner of your eye, you had seen him glance at you to check that your back was turned and you had watched as he knocked back a pill from the bottle next to the sink, keeping his back to you, and making no mention of it. One shot had turned to two and you both went back and forth between chuckling and spitting ire over for the incompetence of the man who had wrongfully received the recognition that you deserved. After your partner poses a particularly explicit hypothetical question regarding “Agent Dickhead’s” relationship with his mother that leaves you clutching your sides in a fit of giggles, he sighs.

“Sorry I wasn’t there. I know you don’t need me or anything like that, that’s not what I mean, but…” he trails off for a moment and fiddles with his glass on the table before finishing. “...I just wish I could have said something. You don’t deserve to be treated like shit.” You sigh too and lean back in your chair.

“Thanks. I appreciate you saying that.” You sit in an amicable silence. Then you shift in your seat, stretching your legs from where you had tucked them up under you “I should go. I don’t want to keep you, I just…” your frustration from the day hits you again like a ton of bricks and in the next instant, to your utter horror you are blubbering into your hands, your shoulders shaking, trying not to sob hysterically in front of what you are sure is your mortified partner. 

You hear his chair scrap across the kitchen tile and you feel more than see him kneeling next to you on the floor. Before you can react to his closeness, he wraps his arms around you and pulls you into his solid frame. You think for a moment that you should pull away...but you just can’t. You breathe him in as you lay your head against his chest and cry into his shirt, the soft smell of soap and cigarettes giving you something else to focus on besides your hurt and rage and you feel your tears start to subside just a little. He buries his face in your hair for just a moment, taking a deep breath and releasing it in a heavy sigh, then he props his chin on top of your head, tightening his arms a little bit more around you. 

You stay like that for a while, his arms cocooned around you, you letting him hold you while you cry yourself out. He’s told you before there is nothing more terrifying to a man than a woman in tears and you know how uncomfortable it makes him feel. This isn’t the first time you’ve cried in front of him; it’s happened before on a few occasions, but it has never resulted in anything quite so intimate. He usually slings an arm around your shoulders or simply sits next to you patiently, waiting until all of your tears are spent. And then there had been that one terrible, dark time when you had found him curled up in the locker room at work at two in the morning, his head clutched in his hands, shoulders shaking, silently sobbing into the wall. You had never been so frightened of anything as you had been then, seeing him so broken in front of you. You had held him and the two of you had never spoken of it again save for his grunted thanks the following day. 

You close your eyes and allow yourself to feel safe, feel small, feel cared for, even if only for a few moments. Your breath comes in shallow stutters as it starts to regulate. Reluctantly, you pull back, sniffling and wiping your nose with the back of your hand. You touch the wet front of his shirt, chuckling your apologies, embarrassed. He shakes it off and shrugs in response and you force yourself to look at him.

His eyes are full of something that makes your heart pound. The longing from previous nights, a reflection of your own hurt, and something that can only be described as adoration. He brings his hands from around you and frames your face along your jaw, his thumbs carefully tracing the trails your tears have made on your cheeks, wiping away the last of the wet streaks. 

“You ok?” He gruffs softly, the question reflected in his soft, sweet brown eyes as they search yours. You can only nod, hypnotized by the incredible tenderness you see in his face. For all of the resolve you have always had that has kept you from crossing the line with this man, you have never felt so much weakness as you do in this moment. Every part of your being screams at you to wrap your arms around his neck and kiss him; to beg him to touch you, to make love to you. You know if you did he would oblige you. He would make you forget how hurt you are by work, make you feel like the most special person in the whole wide world, make you splinter apart under his ministrations. All you had to do was close your eyes and lean forward…

...Before you can convince yourself to act or not, Javi makes the decision for you. Cradling your head in his hands, he leans forward, pressing a soft, sweet kiss to your lips. It lacks the heat of the last time your lips touched, but strikes a perfect balance between chaste and lustful, pressing just long enough to be more than a peck, but not so long that either of you get lost in your desire. He pulls away after a few tender moments, pausing as he does just millimeters from your face, his eyes open, studying you carefully, taking a moment to breathe in the air from your exhalation, his lips hovering over yours. Your eyes remain closed, though, unable to look at him for fear of wrapping yourself around him and shoving him to the floor to ravish him. He lowers his head, his forehead brushing your mouth and he lets out a shaky sigh. He whispers your name as though casting a spell and you open your eyes, staring at his lowered head until he raises it again.

He looks at you for a moment longer, then rocks back onto his heels and pulls himself up to standing, taking you along with him. You stand a little too close to each other for just a moment, heat crackling across the small space that separates you, your palms flat on his chest, his hands resting on your elbows before they drop to his sides. He takes a small step back and the raw desire you see in him frightens you.

You mumble your thanks for the company and drinks along with an apology for losing your shit on him. He waves you off, telling you not to worry about it, never breaking eye contact. You swallow hard and blink before saying goodnight and making your way back to your own apartment, your legs suddenly made of jelly and your heart pounding so hard you’re amazed he doesn’t hear it all the way down the hall.


	9. Day Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While you nurse a hangover, Javi flexes his domestic muscles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The smut has arrived! =-0)
> 
> Also, if anyone is a foodie person, I'm real sorry if the arepa description is off...again, the internet.
> 
> We're coming up to the end, folks!
> 
> Feedback and comments are greatly appreciated.
> 
> Be well!

***

Javi knocks on your door late afternoon the next day. You’ve been nursing your hangover headache most of the morning, lounging on the couch, reading your book and switching back between the news and some cheesy action movie. Around 5 you hear the thumping against your door and groan when you stand and stagger to answer. He stands slouching against your door jamb, a grocery bag in one arm. 

“Hey,” he says by way of greeting and doesn’t wait for you to invite him in before brushing past you into your kitchen. 

“Hey, Peña, come on in…” you mumble, closing the door. You follow him into your kitchen and flop down in a chair, watching him pull items from the bag. “You know you’re not supposed to be going anywhere, Peña. I coulda gone and gotten whatever you needed.” You see his taut shoulders lift in a shrug.

“I’m going crazy cooped up over there. Needed to get out and get some air. Figured you might need something if you kept at that whiskey bottle after you left last night...” His gaze flicks over to yours for an instant, then settles on the three empty wine bottles lined up neatly next to each other on the counter. He smirks and moves to open a cupboard, rummaging around for cooking utensils. “Looks like I wasn’t too far off.” He chuckles under his breath as he dumps oil into a frying pan and lights your stove. You appreciate the fact that he was thinking of you, but for a moment you’re a tad affronted by the way he’s waltzed in and made himself at home in your kitchen.

“You couldn’t have messed up your own kitchen and just called me to come over and eat?” You grumble as you stand and get yourself a glass of water. You hear him laugh quietly.

“No frying pan.” He says simply by way of explanation. You turn away from the sink at the same moment that as he absentmindedly pivots to grab something, putting both of you awkwardly close to one another, well within the other’s personal space. You feel your face flush and you quickly side step away from the counter, hiding your flush behind your glass as you gulp your water. 

“Well,” you say, trying to act normal. “If you’re making dinner, I’m gonna take a shower.” 

You practically flee your own kitchen.

***

Within the hour you’re lured back into joining your partner again by the delicious smell permeating your apartment. Pulling your wet hair up off of your neck, you don sweatpants and another old t-shirt (bra included this time!) 

“Are you making arepas?!” You call out incredulously as you approach the kitchen, hearing the popping of oil and recognizing the familiar scent of warm cornmeal and fried pork. Your mouth had started watering as soon as you had stepped out of the shower.

“Sorta…” He grunts back. “Didn’t make the dough from scratch but I think it’ll do the trick.” Your excitement at Javi’s choice for dinner is suddenly dashed as you take in the state of your kitchen; your countertop is a small battlefield of ingredients and kitchenware. It appears as though he’s used every single utensil and bowl you own. You shake your head, but appreciate his gesture nonetheless. Flopping back down into the same chair, you take a moment to revel in the feeling of domesticity: you in your favorite comfy clothes, your handsome partner cooking up your favorite snack, existing together in comfortable silence while he works on the food and as you studying the way his back muscles flex beneath his shirt…

You shake those thoughts away as he brings a plate piled with a stack of stuffed, corn flour pockets. You're delighted to see he’s altered the traditional Columbian snack and made it more appropriate for your hangover, filling the creation with scrambled eggs, cheese and beef along with the chicharrón you had smelled earlier. He’s included chopped avocado and tomato on the side to add if desired and you’re impressed by the well rounded meal your notoriously take-out eating, chain-smoking-for-every-meal partner has pulled together.

You tell him as much as he joins you at the table and he shrugs, snorting in self-derision, ducking his head as he digs in, shoveling food into his mouth rather than having to address your compliment. You follow suit and the two of you enjoy your meal over general commentary about the food, idle chit-chat, and cursory work talk. After making a substantial dent in the pile of arepas, you lean back in your chair and yawn, satiated and you rub the small bump in your belly that can only be described as a food baby. Rubbing your stomach reminds you of something.

“Hey! How’re your stitches doing? Is it healing up ok?” You haven't seen his injury since that night on his bathroom floor, but you haven’t noticed him struggling to move or showing any indication of being in pain, so you’d almost forgotten the fact that he had been shot just over a week ago. You notice his face grow taut at the mention of his injury and mumbles something along the lines of them being “fine” and “healing ok”; he clearly doesn’t want to discuss it, so you let it go. 

Your thoughts stray to that day, remembering the sick bile that had risen in your throat when you had seen your partner flung off his feet by the force of the bullet hitting him, smacking into the ground; the panic that had bubbled in your stomach when you’d dropped to your knees next to him and seen the blood coming from him. Your brain had quickly determined that the bullet had gone straight through the meaty area of his side and had most likely missed any of the vital organs there, but you’d still clamped your hands down on the wound as though willing your hands to keep the blood inside his body. He had writhed and hollered at you to get off of him, but you had refused, screaming at a police officer to call an ambulance. Your panic had not subsided until several hours later when the doctor had told you he was in no danger and would make a quick and complete recovery.

Lost in the frightening memory of that day, you stare blankly at the surface of the table, paying no attention to the way Javi’s eyes flicker as he remembers something, too. You’re distantly aware of his hand reaching into his shirt pocket and retrieving something, but it isn’t until you catch sight of him sharply tossing his head back and gulping a large swallow of water that you realize he’d been moving. He doesn’t look at you as he recaps the pill bottle and slips it back in his pocket. Instead, he grabs both of your plates, taking them to the sink and filling the basin with warm, soapy water.

“You don’t need to do that, Peña, you take care of the counters, I’ll do the dishes,” you protest, dragging yourself to your feet and moving next to him at the sink.

“It’s no big deal.” His voice is low and sounds sleepy. You poke him in the (uninjured) side with your elbow and push him away from the sink with a gentle bump on the side of his leg with your hip.

“That’s not how it works around here, Agent Peña.” You begin soaking dishes in the sudsy water, hyper aware that he hasn’t moved away from you, his leg still brushing yours. He turns so he’s facing you and leans his hip into the counter, studying your profile. You suddenly feel the need to be very focused on the sink so as not to drop a plate.

“Oh yeah?” His voice is even lower now, which seems impossible, and it stirs that thing inside of you that you’ve been desperately trying to control for the last nine days...no...much longer than that. “How exactly does it work around here?” He asks teasingly. You smirk, roll your eyes to distract yourself from the flush you feel throughout your body and jerk your head towards the mess he’d made while cooking. 

“The person who cooks never does the dishes. Just clean up your mess over there and bring me those dishes and we’ll call it good.” You feel equal pangs of relief and agony as he moves away from you but you concentrate on washing the dishes. You both make quick work of your respective tasks. As you set to work on the last pan he brings you, he finishes drying the plates with a towel and you’re once again struck by the comfortable feeling of domestic life you feel, standing in your kitchen side by side with him. 

Your mind wanders again: when you’re finished, the two of you would retire to the couch and you’d snuggle up into his chest as you watched a movie, his feet propped up on your coffee table and his arm around and you would both sink into sleep. Not long after he would wake you by peppering kisses along the crown of your head, your forehead, your closed eyes and he would whisper sweet nothings to you in Spanish as he picked you and carried you to your bedroom…

A loud plopping clatter sounds and a splash of soapy water spouts out of the washbasin as the pan you’re scrubbing slips from your grasp. You hear Javi chuckle softly next to you and he reaches over and swipes away soap suds that landed on the tip of your nose and directly below your eye. You shiver at his touch and he notices; he pauses midway through pulling his hand back, leaving it hovering for a moment in the space between the two of you. Hesitantly he reaches down and takes your soapy hand in his, lacing his fingers between yours and bringing them both to rest on the edge of the sink.

The feel of his strong hand over yours sends another shiver through you and you can’t look at him, instead keeping your face focused on the soapy water. But you don’t pull away. His hand connected with yours on the counter keeps you in place. You feel your insides start to flutter and burn.

You’re dimly aware of him leaning towards you. You feel his warm breath on your outstretched neck a half second before he places an open mouthed kiss there, on the spot below your ear, where your pulse suddenly thrums a thousand times faster than it had been. You can’t stop yourself from gasping as you involuntarily clench your thighs together against the jolt of pleasure that zaps there, sent directly from the spot where his mouth touches you.

It’s like nothing you’ve ever felt before. Of course you’ve had other men kiss you on the neck but this...this is HIM. It’s him: with his stupid mustache that tickles along the sensitive skin and the tip of his tongue that swirls and traces the pounding pulse. It’s him: the ambivalent Agent Javier Peña who never seems to care about anyone, but who you know possesses a well of emotion just below the carefully guarded surface of his persona. Him: the sexy playboy whose prowess in the bedroom is the stuff of legends among men and women alike at work...and in the brothels across Bogota. Him: that you have refused to give in to for almost two years of your life, even as you’ve both grown weary and broken and sought comfort from all the wrong places. These last eight days have been merely puffs of air into a balloon, filling it, expanding it...and now this feels like the final push of air that might make it pop...

...You let it pop.

You drop your head back against his shoulder and release a breathy sigh that rises from the very depths of your repressed desire for him, letting your whole body sag back into him. Without taking his lips from your neck, he shifts himself so that he more solidly stands behind you. Your other hand takes on a mind of its own and lifts to stroke the back of his neck, scratching your fingernails softly through the hair at the nape of neck, causing him to emit a sound from someplace deep within him, pressing the noise into the sensitive skin of your neck. He still hasn’t removed his lips from your skin, afraid to break the connection and snapping you both out of this moment that you’ve been crashing towards for a long time.

You exist this way for several seconds, minutes, hours...you’re not sure. You aren’t even conscious of the fact that you’re grinding your ass back into him until he suddenly rips his mouth from your neck and latches his teeth onto your earlobe. A feral growl tears from his throat as he grabs your hand from the back of his neck and smacks it down beneath his on the counter top as well, caging you between his arms and thrusting his pelvis into your backside, shoving both of your hips forward into the kitchen counter. The feel of him suddenly so roughly pressed against you sends your breath rushing from your chest in a sharp and lusty moan and you freeze for a moment, neither of you moving, save for the soft twitching you can feel along the front of his pants. 

Your mouth hangs open and you gasp for a few short breaths. Then you focus on the hand beneath his and move to thread your fingers through his to match your other hands. Gripping him tightly for leverage, you forcefully push your ass back against him: grinding up and down, left and right, forward and backward against the steel outline of his erection. He lets out a strangled cry, rocking his hips along with yours, occasionally snapping his hips forwards to create different friction.

You’re on fire everywhere. Your brain is screaming at you to stop while you still can, but you’ve had enough of that. As you both continue to gasp and push and rub and thrust against one another, the throbbing between your legs becomes too much. Before you can convince yourself not to, you take his hand and draw it between your legs, pressing his palm against you, moving your hand over his, wordlessly begging him to rub you where you so desperately need. He releases another strangled noise, this one higher and more desperate, then he rests his forehead against the back of your neck.

“F-fu-fuck!” he bites out against your skin. You’ve never heard him struggle with a curse...or any word...so much. You let out a breathy moan in response, moving your hand away as he takes over rubbing you, relocating your hand to where it was previously, carding your fingers through his hair. He trails his mouth to your other ear, taking the lobe gently between his teeth as he did with the other. You whimper when his warm palm leaves the space between your legs. His fingers trail up your abdomen and trace along the elastic of your sweatpants...and stop, hovering there along the hem as his body stills, his mouth pulling away from you slightly, looking at you carefully. You’re both panting frantically and he whispers into your ear: “Can I?”

It takes you a moment to realize what he means, but when you do, you turn your head towards him and nod, leaning back into his body again, your hips squirming in anticipation.

“Say it.” He growls into your ear. You gulp, close your eyes and whisper:

“Touch me.”

His hand is immediately under the elastic, his finger buried inside your wetness, immediately finding that spot inside of you that makes you cry out and thrust your hips forward, seeking more. He gives it to you.

His thumb sweeps over your clit, eliciting more cries and gasps. Soon he adds a second finger into your folds and between the two broad digits and his expert touch with his thumb, you feel yourself quickly rising towards your release, your cries becoming louder, more desperate, babbling nonsense as he brings you closer to the edge. He snaps his own hips forward against your ass in rhythm with his fingers as he pumps them in and out of you, adding quiet hisses of affirmation against your neck, your ears, into your hair. He growls your name as he asks you to cum for him and that’s enough to make you explode, feeling your walls contract around his fingers, your juices surging out of you and covering his hand. In the next instant you feel his thrusts against your backside become shallow and his moans turn into a series of staccato mewls and he presses himself against you and into the countertop, gasping into your hair.

He continues to stroke you with several more long strokes of his fingers as you both come down, the realization of what’s just happened settling over you. He slips his hand from beneath our sweatpants and rests it on your hip, squeezing your other hand gently; your hands had remained threaded with his the entire time, grounding you both together. You can only stare at your clasped hands, feeling your face flush from the reality of what had just occurred. He moves to press a kiss against your neck again, the same act that had kicked all of this off to begin with and you shy away from him, lifting your shoulder to block his face, pulling away from him and unwedging yourself from between him and the counter. You hear him quietly say your name and he tries to hang on to your hand, tries to pull you back towards him, but you tug your hand away, crossing your arms over your chest and shaking your head, refusing to turn around and look at him.

“I think you should go.” You say quietly after a few moments of silence. You hear him take in a sharp breath, can feel him starting to say something. 

But he doesn’t say anything.

You move when he does, keeping the same equal distance between the two of you, heading towards your bedroom on the off chance that he might try to step closer and touch you on his way past you as he leaves. You know if he touches you again you won’t be able to resist him...not now that you know what his touch feels like. You hear him grab his jacket off the back of his chair as you move down your hallway and you lean against your bedroom door, listening for the sound of your front door closing. 


	10. Day Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the last day of your deal with Javi, you have to face the aftermath of what happened in your kitchen the night before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, we've reached the end, folks. Thanks for reading and for your incredible comments. They've inspired me to actually finish a story for once and I really appreciate the kind words...perhaps I'll try my hand at another one!
> 
> As always, comments are greatly appreciated.
> 
> Be well!

***

You don’t get out of bed the next day. You hear your phone ring several times, but you ignore it. You hear a soft knock on your front door a few times but you ignore that too. You can hardly bring yourself to remember or think about what happened; every time you start to, your legs feel heavy and your face flushes and your stomach rolls. How will you ever face him after this? How are you ever going to look him in the eye, stand beside him during a meeting, sit next to him during a stakeout? You can’t even bring yourself to imagine what Monday’s going to be like.

You finally pull yourself out of bed and shower late in the evening, rambling into the kitchen to find something to eat. Your heart pounds as you look at your kitchen sink and you think about eating one of the leftover arepas for about half a second before chucking them in the trash. You’re pretty sure you won’t ever be able to eat an arepa again. You settle for an apple and as you wander from your kitchen back towards your hallway, you notice something lying on the floor in front of your door. You pick up a piece of paper that has clearly been shoved beneath the crack. You consider not opening it for just a moment; you close your eyes and pray that there are no platitudes or confessions of love written on it, although you didn’t think that was your partner’s style. You carefully unfold the paper and read the three words written there:

_"Open the door."_

It takes you a second to process. You press your eye to the peephole, see nothing. Slowly and cautiously you open the door. 

He’s sitting there on the floor, leaning against the wall opposite your door. How long had he been there? You hadn’t noticed him just below the range of your vision from the hole in your door... _if he had been a sicario you would probably be dead by now,_ you thought to yourself ruefully.

As soon as he hears your door opening, he stands, but he remains on the other side of the hall, keeping his distance, his hands shoved in his jacket pockets. You consider slamming the door shut in his face, but you realized that wasn’t fair...he hadn’t done anything that you hadn’t given him permission to do. You gulp, leaning against the door and drilling your gaze into the floor, your face flaming now that the moment of truth is here and he’s standing in front of you.

Neither of you say anything for several long moments. Then he simply says your name. The emotion behind it causes you to look up at him. 

His eyes are that same puppy dog look you had seen before: terrified that you would kick him but wanting so desperately to make you happy in any way he can. You lean your head against the door and sigh. 

“I’m sorry.” You say quietly. 

“Why?” 

Your eyes meet his and you don’t have a good answer. So you just shrug.

“This was all just a stupid idea from the beginning, Peña. It was just...a stupid fucking game that we shouldn’t’ve been playing. It got way too out of hand and last night…” You stop, looking away and sighing again before forcing yourself to look him in the eye and finish your thought. …”Well…” you swallow the knot in your throat. “Last night should never have happened.”

He listens to you, watching your face carefully as you speak. When you finish, he puts a hand on a hip and shifts his weight from one leg to another as he so often does when he’s thinking, staring at the floor for a moment as you had done. 

“Anyway...” you start to continue. “If it’s possible, I would just really like to forget this whole thing.” You feel your voice start to tremble and you breathe through your nose. He lifts his eyes to your face again. “I just...I’d really just like to go back to the way things were between us.” His eyes are locked on yours and he nods slowly. Suddenly all you want is for him to smile at you, for things to go back to the way they were ten days ago, for you to wake up and have all of this be a dream.

“I’m so sorry about all of this, Peña, I really am.” 

His face cracks into something you can’t identify...or, at least something you can’t let yourself identify right now.

“I’m not.” 

He looks at you for several more long moments, letting the weight of those two words settle between you, seep into the carpet of the hallway and bury itself beneath the flaking paint on the walls. 

He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the pill bottle, tossing it across the hall to you. You snatch it out of the air, and when you catch it, you feel it’s empty weight in your hands. You stare down at it: this tiny little thing that has caused so much trouble for you. You shake it absentmindedly, as though making sure it’s truly empty before lifting your eyes back to his face. He swallows hard and then seems to make up his mind about something.

With two quick steps he crosses the hallway. His hands grab your hips and pull you into him. It isn’t forceful. It isn’t rough. But it is filled with passion as he seals his lips over yours, sliding one hand up the side of your body, up your arm, up your neck, burying his hands in your hair and cradling the back of your head in his hand, his other snaking behind you and splaying across your lower back, pulling you tighter against him. Despite your earlier words, you find yourself melting into his embrace, sinking into the sweetness of his kiss, your arms wrapping around his neck as the intensity of him arches you both backwards slightly. His strong arm around your waist secures you flush against his body and you’re aware of every toned muscle and tendon along his thighs, his abdomen, his chest.

He holds the two of you this way for a long while, angling his mouth differently against yours every few moments, trying to memorize the way your lips feel against his. 

Eventually, he pulls back, leaving both of you breathless. He straightens you against him, pressing his forehead to yours, his eyes closed, breathing you in. With what seems like Promethean effort, he slips his hands off of you and takes two steps backwards to his spot on the other side of the hall, his face flushed and his lips swollen, gaze dark, his chest rising and falling with his heavy breaths. You’re in a similar state and you both stand there, staring at each other.

Then he nods once, confirming something inside his head and his face changes; his usual, detached, “fuck-off”, DEA mask falls into place, wiping away the softness you had seen there only a moment before and strides back down the hall and into his apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end!.............


	11. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Psych!!! 
> 
> I wouldn't leave them hanging that way! This is where the story earns its rating folks....like, seriously, it ended up being about four pages of smut. And this is my first time writing something smutty soooo....(fingers crossed!) 
> 
> Thanks for reading. Comments and feedback greatly appreciated.
> 
> Be well!

***

The week that follows your conversation in the hallway has all the elements of normalcy that you asked for. With Javi returning to work (but still not to active field duty) his mood was almost as bad as it was when he’d been stuck at home. Chaining the usually restless agent to his desk and burying him in paperwork was torture for everyone that came within growling distance. By the end of his second day back, the two of you had ended up in a shouting match across the bullpen.

Welp, you had thought ruefully as you’d stormed away from your desks. You did ask for things to go back to normal…

It had been a slow week by Columbian DEA standards. It had allowed you plenty of time to be out and about rooting out intel, but when you were in the office with your partner, your interactions gave every indication that he had heeded your wish for things to simply go back to the way they were. Your stomach turns on Thursday when you overhear two young agents from the typing pool tittering by the water cooler about how much good the time off seems to have done for your partner’s physique, despite being laid up at home for ten days; you hadn’t thought about everything going back to normal when you had asked for it...but you had made your choice and now you would have to deal with everything that went along as “normal” for Javier Peña.

You both knocked off from work early on Friday, waving your “have a good weekends” to one another as you went into your separate apartments. You showered, changed into a casual, comfortable sundress, put on some Steely Dan and had polished off some leftovers and a glass of wine when you heard a knock on your door. Checking the peephole you pulled the door open, surprised to see him. You’d expected him to either have a flavor of the week joining him at his place or to be out meeting up with one of his informants. Your partner stood with one arm raised leaning against your doorframe and he looked surprised when he scraped his eyes up and down your figure, his face falling.

“Sorry,” he stuttered. “I uh...I didn’t know you were…” his eyes glanced into your apartment then back to you. Seeing the question on your face, he said “Are you expecting someone?”

“No...why?” You realized: the dress, the music...he thought you had a date. “Oh…” you sputter. “Uh, no, no...I’m not expecting…” You chuckle to yourself at the sad state of your life, unconsciously resorting to dressing up and having a romantic dinner with music by yourself on a Friday night. You sigh and change the subject, crossing your arms in front of the low cut top of the dress, changing the subject before you can think too much about your sad love life. “What’s up, Peña?”

He’s taken off guard by your question. He straightens and seems to search for words for a moment, his eyes flitting to the door, over your shoulder, the floors, your kitchen, his toes; he looks everywhere except at you. You wait impatiently, slightly annoyed that your pleasant evening alone has been interrupted. When his eyes finally land back on yours, you see a familiar look there: that damn puppy dog look again.

“So…” His voice is soft. “Turns out after ten days I sorta developed a habit...” He trails off, searching your face for understanding. When he sees it in your eyes, he slowly pushes himself off the doorframe and steps carefully across the threshold, closer to you. You don’t move, your arms still across your chest, your eyes locked with his. He takes another half step closer, stepping into your space, his eyes locked with yours. You shake your head a little, feeling your stomach twist in knots, full of want and yearning.

“We can’t…” the words barely squeak out and with much less conviction than you had intended. You wouldn’t have believed you if you’d heard it and neither does Javi. He swallows and reaches his arm out next to you, pushing the door shut with a soft click then waits to see what you’ll do next. When you don’t move, he steps even closer. As he does, you start to step back but find yourself following the path of the closed door and before you can step in a different direction, your back is pressed against the door and your mind is full of the last time he had you pinned against an apartment door. “We can’t…” you breathe again.

“I want you.”

It is such a simple statement, spoken so quietly and so matter of factly that you can’t believe he’s not simply reciting a plan for a takedown. His hands stay at his side as he closes the last of the space between you, brushing against you in all of the magic places that set your heart fluttering and your pulse racing.

“I know you do.” You say. “But...we can’t.” He ignores the words for a third time and continues to stare into your eyes. His voice is gravely and soft, full of vulnerability and tinged with fear when he says:

“Do you want me?” His directness puts you off balance and your mouth falls open...unsure of how to respond. The simple answer was ‘yes’...but your lives weren’t simple. You admire his courage in this moment...something has changed is different about him; he’s no longer resorting to silly innuendos, with teasing and testing jokes used to measure your temperature. You wonder at his sudden change in tactic.

As usual, he seems to be able to read exactly what you’re thinking by looking at your face. When you don’t answer his question, he continues:

“I coulda died two weeks ago. A couple millimeters to the left and I might not have known how it felt to kiss you.” You feel like you’ve been smacked in the gut by his surprisingly sweet words, the earnestness in his voice. “I don’t wanna…” He seems to struggle to speak for a moment, then he continues. “I don’t wanna do this fuckin’ dance anymore with you that we’ve been doin’. I know what you think this’ll be, but…it's not. Maybe it woulda been two years ago, but…” he trails off and shakes his head softly. “I don’t think…” Again he stalls on his words, taking a breath and starting again. “I...know...that I’m not the best guy to...ya know…” he tilts his head as though to fill in the blank. When he can see you’re not following what he’s saying he sighs and tries again, staring into your eyes. “I dunno if I’ll be any good in any kind of...relationship,” he practically chokes on the word but he steadies himself and keeps going. “But, I’m willing to give it a shot.” His eyes that have held your gaze up this point suddenly blink several times and you see them flash with fear the longer the silence between you stretches. He huffs out breath and you can see panic starting to set in on his face, you shake yourself and try to piece words together to say something. He licks his lips and takes a step back. His voice is husky and low and you think that maybe it’s streaked with the deep self-loathing you know he unfairly has for himself. “It’s ok, though,” he says reassuringly, backtracking frantically. “If...if you don’t...we can just...forget this ever happened.” His voice cracks just a little as he echoes your words from a week ago. “Go back to the way thing-”

Before he can finish speaking, your hands lift and tangle themselves into the hair at his temples, reveling in the silky softness of his dark locks between your fingers. His brow furrows and his eyes close at your touch. He’s completely taken off guard when you lean into him and press your lips to his mouth, feeling his breath hitch at the unexpected contact. You feel his body sag as the tension he’d been holding leaves his body and his hands finally lift to cup your face when your lips part from his. He rests his forehead on yours and releases a breath of relief, his eyes still closed. You bump your nose against his, nudging him to look at you. When he opens his eyes, you see something in them that makes you smile. He smiles at you, too, and he reaches for one of your hands, pulling it to his lips and kissing your palm as he had done that night in the bathroom, eyes locked with yours the whole time.

You lose track of how long you stand pressed against your door, his hands traveling over your body, stroking your hair, grazing under the hem of your dress along your thigh, brushing the back of his hand over your breasts, tugging on your hips to bring you closer to him. Where his hands don’t go, his mouth explores instead, seeking to draw sharp breaths from you as he travels along your jaw, traces around your ear, whispers down your neck, then changing course and peppering kisses on your forehead, your eyelids, your mouth, your nose. At one point he hitches his leg between yours, and you feel him heavy and hard against your thigh, a promise of what’s to come. You put your hands flat against his chest and push him gently, causing him to tear his lips away from your clavicle. His eyes are hooded and he looks at you, confused.

You push his jacket off of his shoulders and let it fall to the floor in a heap, then clutch his shirt with both hands and start to slowly direct him backwards further into your apartment. You kiss him deeply, his hands fisting in your hair, echoing the kiss he’d given you that night on his couch as you’d pored over maps and satellite photos. You keep your lips sealed to his as you change direction and begin pulling him towards the hallway leading to your bedroom, giggling like kids against the other’s lips as you trip and stumble over each other in your attempts to walk. You pause for a moment and pull back, caressing his cheek with one hand.

“Hey.” When he doesn’t stop trying to devour your wrist next to his face, you bump his nose with yours again, drawing his attention to your face. You smile. “Hi.” You say softly. He grins back at you.

“Hi.”

“Listen…” you begin as he leans forward and softly presses his lips to hers. You tear your lips from under his and try again. “Hey, listen, at some point, we should probably talk about how this is gonna work, ya know?” He nods and chases your lips with his. You pull away again. “I mean, we don’t have to do it right now but...at some point...ok?” Another kiss stops you from talking and he nods against your mouth, then proceeds to drag open mouth kisses along your jaw and down your neck, licking along your pulse points and the sensitive skin below your ear. “Like...maybe tomorrow? It’s important, Javi.”

His head abruptly pops up and he stares at you with a dazed look on his face.

“What?” you ask, worried you'd said something wrong. A lopsided grin spreads across his face.

“That’s the first time you’ve ever called me, Javi,” he says happily and your heart breaks as you realize it’s true. He kisses you again, soft, fluttering kisses that change the angle of your lips on his every time he lifts his mouth.

“Javi…” you breathe and you hear him give a satisfied mmmm from deep within his chest, still kissing you softly over and over. “Javi.” You put your hand on his mouth, trying to create a barrier to stop his amorous onslaught on your lips, but he simply draws two fingers into his mouth. You sigh and fix your resolve, trying once more. “Javi!” He pauses with your index and middle finger in his mouth, looking at your face with another question in his eyes. “I mean it,” you say with all the seriousness you can muster while a man felatios your fingers. “We’re gonna have to have some serious conversations...probably hard conversations. We’re both going to have to say some stuff that might not be easy...we have to be honest...ok?” Your fingers slip from his mouth and his face becomes serious. He nods and strokes your chin with his hand.

“Ok.” More kisses. Another forced pause.

“Promise you won’t sneak out in the middle of the night?” You ask him pointedly. He chuckles good naturedly as you both know he’s done that with other women on more than one occasion.

“I promise...I’m not goin’ anywhere.” He kisses the tip of your nose, adding for good measure: “I’ll even make you breakfast in the morning.” You roll your eyes, remembering the mess he made in your kitchen a week ago.

“Well, let’s not get carried away here.” You chuckle as he kisses you again.

“No, I mean it,” he mumbles against your mouth then moves his lips to hover over your ear. “I make a pretty mean pancake.” You smile at him as he looks at you, another lazy grin spreading across his handsome face. All of a sudden, he ducks his head and body low into your side and before you know what’s happening, he’s lifting you over his shoulder fireman style and carrying you down the hall to your bedroom, your screeches about how he’ll exacerbate his injury making him chuckling the whole way.

He kicks open your bedroom door and unceremoniously deposits you onto your bed, crouching over you and planting a powerful kiss on your lips before he grabs you behind the knees and pulls you backwards with him to the edge of the bed. Your legs hang off the side as he kneels between them. You prop yourself up on your elbows and he lowers himself to the floor, trailing kisses as he goes on your chest, your stomach, your abdomen, your thighs, all the way down to the hem of your dress, where he slides a hand across each thigh, pushing the skirt’s material up slowly. His eyes lock on yours as his hands start their return route upwards, his mouth following, gently nipping, his mustache prickling along the sensitive skin of your inner thighs. He pauses for half a moment when he realizes you aren't wearing any underwear to impede his journey and a delighted smirk crosses his face before he refocuses on the goal before him. His eyes are dark, full of lust and burning with want and desire; like nothing you’ve ever seen before. You shiver: whether from his touch, his gaze or the idea of where his mouth is headed you’re not sure… and it doesn’t matter. You smile softly as you watch part of his face disappear between your thighs, his eyes still glued to yours.

At the first feel of his mouth on you your head falls backwards and you gasp. It isn’t long before your arms begin to shake from the sensation of his tongue and mouth and teeth exploring your folds. You lay back and let out another gasping breath, your hands fisting in the sheets as he continues to pleasure you. His nose bumps along that most sensitive bundle of nerves; your hips involuntarily jolt off the bed and you cry out. He slides one hand up around your hip, holding you in place as he refocuses his onslaught on your clit. His other hand continues to travel upwards, rucking your dress up your body further, his palm finding your breast and his thumb swirling around your pebbled nipple. You gasp out his name, bringing one hand up to cover the one lavishing attention on your breast. You rest it there as he sucks gently on you; it isn’t long before you feel yourself nearing your release.

“Javi!” You bring your head up, clutching your fingers in his hair, your gaze catching his again as he looks up at you. He pulls his mouth away from you briefly with a filthy slurp that nearly tumbles you over the edge. “Close…” you pant out, your eyes pleading with him. “Want you when…” You can’t seem to form words to make yourself coherent, but he understands you.

“I know, baby. We’ll get there. I promise.” He lowers his head to you again and after only a few more moments you feel yourself unfurling within yourself, white hot and perfect; the pleasure rolls over you as you cry out again. He holds you with his hand at your hip, his mouth gently working you through your orgasm. As you come back down and your breathing starts to settle, he carefully crawls over you, back up your body, his lips sealing against yours again, his tongue nudging your mouth open and swirling against yours. You taste yourself on him and a satisfied little moan escapes your throat. You feel him smile against your lips. “Good?” He asks softly, his lips still against yours. You hum a happy affirmative.

He takes a moment to pull you to your knees, flush against him and hauls your dress up and over your head, taking time to gaze at your bare body with reverence, focusing his kisses and his tongue on each of your breasts. You suddenly realize he’s still completely clothed and you make quick work of his shirt and belt, but when you start to unsnap his jeans, he bats your hand away and yanks you behind the knees, pulling your legs out from under you and causing you to flop back against the mattress. You give a tiny squeal of surprise and giggle. He chuckles at the sound of your laughter as he stretches out behind you, pulling your hips back against him. You gasp as you feel his length, much the way you had little less than a week ago pressed against your kitchen counter, and he reiterates the memory by snaking his hand around and burying his fingers in your sensitive and soaking folds. You moan, jerking your hips back into him, hearing him grunt raggedly into your ear.

“Ohmygodyes...” You breath out, dropping your head back onto the pillow, crying curse words and groans into the bed, giving him unfettered access to your neck. He devours what feels like every inch of your exposed skin as his agile fingers pump and stroke and circle you. His thumb frantically rubs your clit as he plunges two fingers inside of you, curling them just right and hitting you _right there_...over and over and over again. You feel yourself starting to come apart again and you grip the wrist of the hand between your legs, then scrape your fingernails along his arm, scrabbling for purchase somewhere, finally settling on his head as he sucks on your ear. You fist your hand into his hair, eliciting a hiss of pleasure from him and he to gently bites down on your shoulder as you squirm next to him.

“Come on, baby,” he whispers against your skin and you follow his invitation. The molten heat consumes you once more, spreading through every inch of you as you shout his name again. He strokes you a few more times as you come down.

You flip over on top of him quickly, straddling his hips, grabbing for his jeans button and zipper, tearing them open like a hungry person. He chuckles again at your eagerness when you shove the offending denim down his hips and he does the rest of the work by kicking them off, grinning up at you and clasping your hips with his hands. You take his length in your hand carefully, give him several experimental strokes, watching in fascination as his eyes roll back in his head and he chokes out a moan, his head lolling back against the pillow. You move your hand back and forth, up and down, twisting occasionally, feeling the magnificent hardness beneath the satiny skin.

It’s your turn to smirk as you watch him grunt again and feel his hips jerk up into your hand, the veins in his neck standing out as he strains against the pleasure of your touch. You move your warm core closer to where your hand works and carefully slide the entire length of him along your wet seam, drawing a sordid groan from his mouth. You drag him back and forth several times, recalling the night you straddled him in his recliner, participating in a similar action but with far more clothing separating the two of you. You repeat the motion a few more times, enjoying the noises he’s making before gripping him carefully and placing the tip of him against your dripping entrance…

...He sits up straight suddenly, causing you to lose your grip when he pulls away from you. His arms fly around your waist to keep you from being bucked off of him and he pulls you flush against his chest, hugging you closely to him and he buryies his face in your neck beneath your jaw, breathing in the smell of your skin. His mustache tickles you, but you ignore the urge to giggle, focusing instead on the feeling of his hard length pressed against your belly. He holds you there together for a few moments, both of you panting. You stroke along the sides of his face with both hands and he pulls his face away from your neck, gazes up at you in adoration. You smile down at him and trace his swollen lips, hypnotized by their softness. He takes your hands in both of his and laces your fingers together, drawing them to rest on his chest for a moment. He bends his neck down and presses a gentle kiss on the knuckles of both of your hands and you think he looks like a man in the midst of prayer, bowing his head and kissing a sacred relic. You press a kiss into the top of his head, inhaling the smell of smoke and sweat and soap in his hair. Desperate for him to fill you, you whisper against the dark locks:

“Javi...please…” That’s all you need to say. Once more, he knows exactly what you mean.

He carefully turns you both over, settling himself between your thighs, holding his weight off of you, forearms along your sides, caging you. He keeps his eyes on yours as he moves himself to your entrance, and you bite your lip as you feel him begin to press you open. You nod with satisfaction and moan as he continues to push himself further and finally...finally...he’s completely seated inside of you. You release identical moans of pleasure simultaneously as you both relish in the sensation of being so intimately connected after so much time of only imagining and dreaming of it. It feels better than anything you had ever created in your fantasies.

He carefully pulls himself out and pushes in again. Making sure you’re not in any pain or discomfort, he begins to move faster. You wrap your arms around him, your nails digging into his shoulders and you hook your legs up around his hips, pulling a strangled groan from you both as the movement draws him into you deeper and creates a new angle. You cry out as his length causes friction against just the right spot within you, and the sound seems to serve as a starting pistol for him. His hips begin to move at a faster pace. You spur him on by calling out his name and he returns by calling yours, too. The only sound in the room becomes your flesh slapping together over and over again amidst a mix of Spanish and English expletives, naming of deities, shouts of praise, and desperate encouragements and affirmations to continue a particular speed or movement.

You feel the molten fire beginning to rise inside you again and you whisper into his ear that you’re close. He kisses you in response, snaking a hand between you and finding your bundle of nerves, swallowing your cry with his mouth against yours and moaning into you as he feels you come apart. You let the wave of pleasure sweep you up into the heavens and within moments, you’re dimly aware of his thrusts becoming shallow, losing their steady rhythm as your walls clench around him. In the next instant you feel him twitch inside of you and he fills you, his own cries dancing across your tongue and traveling down into your very soul. The two of you rock against one another for several languid moments, riding out your respective climaxes, simply holding one another and delighting in the feeling of being completely spent.

Eventually, Javi’s arms begin to wobble and he collapses next to you on the bed. You stroke his flushed cheek. He gives you a small, exhausted but very satisfied smile, and you draw his head down to your chest. He immediately snuggles into your body, wrapping his arms around you. You hold each other as you stroke your fingers through his hair and you listen to his breath become slow and shallow. Just when you’re sure he must be asleep, you hear him murmur against your skin.

“Why’d we wait so long to do that, again?” His voice is thick and slurry and you laugh ruefully.

“Because I’m a fool,” you croak out. He hums in sleepy disagreement, drawing in a heavy breath and lifting his head to look at you, propping his chin on your shoulder. You just stare at each other for a while and then he extends his neck upwards, pressing a quick, chaste kiss to your lips; it reminds you of the one he gave you last Friday when you sobbed in his arms. You’re struck by the simple sweetness of it: full of tenderness and affection….and maybe…just maybe….love? When he pulls back, you’re certain you’ve never seen his stern face look so peaceful and open and happy, and you feel similar emotions tugging inside your chest. _Not tonight_ , you think to yourself. There’ll be time to talk about all of that tomorrow. You know he’ll be next to you in the morning, just as he promised.

He shifts his weight a little, making sure you’re both comfortable as he yawns and puts his head back on your chest. You carefully pull the comforter over the two of you and you both begin to fall asleep. Just as you slip from waking into slumber he murmurs sleepily against your chest:

“Thanks for making me take my medicine.”

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback and comments, greatly appreciated. Hope you enjoy!


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